A 90-employee studio with ONE actively-maintained product is releasing only ONE THREE-LINE bug fix patch per week. Unbelievable.

[GeluHUN]

Correct we have EA, and EA is currently almost undefined. We have a new kind of product on the market, so here society, or corporations get to set what EA means. Nuance of definition, this kind of EA may be acceptable from a tiny no name indie company run out of mum's basemen, or maybe not.
While your token price idea would solve this particular problem it removes the point of EA for the company, early funds to grow rapidly. I am ok with the investment.

There are posts about what the developers doing and what they plan to do, "without communication" is not true. Personally I think there should be more of these and in more detail.
Jesus talk about splitting hairs, yes there is communication. Farting in someones general direction could be considered communication. The point is they released an abortion and they dont even seem embarrassed enough to do PR to save face.

What you see is only how the studio communicates about the "situation" and not how they are handling it. Reading your comment it seems that you have no even read the (few) communications they have already made on the topic.
No what I see is the end product of how the studio is handling the situation. This is the criteria i am judging them on. Its a mess, whats the plan?


But, putting all this aside, because you last sentence is left open: what do you have in mind to do beside patients? What would be "professional" in your opinion?
How would you act if you made a large error at work? Are you being facetious? I am after basic customer service. Not even all patches are communicated.

facetious - I had to look up this word, never heard it before. No I'm not facetious. I do make a mistake, professionally, and first thing I'd like is to be judged by facts, and then correct/mitigate that mistake as fast as I can. It has happened a few times. But it was never on company level, it was always personal: I have made the mistake, I have apologized, and I have corrected the mistake.

"Not even all patches are communicated" - this is a fact, one that I have called out Callum, but he has not even responded. Yes, this should be improved and corrected. These are the things we should do - go by facts and act on those facts.

"to do PR to save face" - maybe, or maybe they don't think there is a problem, or maybe they try to hide the fact, or maybe a thousand other possibilities. We don't know and that is why we should go with facts and not "maybe"s.

Maybe it seems like splitting hair, but I do think that this is the thing to do if we want results and not just shouting into the wind until we get tired. I don't, I won't see many things - that is why I ask others, whom may have noticed something I have not.

 

[musashii89]

facetious - I had to look up this word, never heard it before. No I'm not facetious. I do make a mistake, professionally, and first thing I'd like is to be judged by facts, and then correct/mitigate that mistake as fast as I can. It has happened a few times. But it was never on company level, it was always personal: I have made the mistake, I have apologized, and I have corrected the mistake.

"Not even all patches are communicated" - this is a fact, one that I have called out Callum, but he has not even responded. Yes, this should be improved and corrected. These are the things we should do - go by facts and act on those facts.

"to do PR to save face" - maybe, or maybe they don't think there is a problem, or maybe they try to hide the fact, or maybe a thousand other possibilities. We don't know and that is why we should go with facts and not "maybe"s.

Maybe it seems like splitting hair, but I do think that this is the thing to do if we want results and not just shouting into the wind until we get tired. I don't, I won't see many things - that is why I ask others, whom may have noticed something I have not.

Sorry, splitting hairs is slang. split hairs. phrase. If you say that someone is splitting hairs, you mean that they are making unnecessary distinctions between things when the differences between them are so small they are not important.

We cannot act on 'fact' because the opposition controls what we see. We can only observe how they interact with us and with the game, and neither is being done professionally atm
They need to clear the air, then start engaging players just to start, only then will we know what needs fixing, both in the code and in their studio.

 

[Revverie]

Sorry, splitting hairs is slang. split hairs. phrase. If you say that someone is splitting hairs, you mean that they are making unnecessary distinctions between things when the differences between them are so small they are not important.

We cannot act on 'fact' because the opposition controls what we see. We can only observe how they interact with us and with the game, and neither is being done professionally atm
They need to clear the air, then start engaging players just to start, only then will we know what needs fixing, both in the code and in their studio.

So your plan is to tell them what needs to be fixed both in their code and their studio? Bruh you either worked in a big company for 15 years with a vast knowledge in both matters or you overestimate yourself a lot
I would like to know how handling something with professionalism is to you. You know I get a lot of the critiques in these forums, people come up with good stuff, good critique, but when someone comes with this ridiculous idea that they're going to save the company from corruption and lies and everything I just stop listening. It's literally way too ridiculous to even think you're going to be able to tell a company you barely know how things should be done, I get you can suggest what can be done, you can talk about the issues in order for them to consider how to act with that information, it's not a community of larpers demanding information so, after they have checked, the company can act under their command, please stop this thread is reaching extreme levels of delusional cringe I cant even understand it. This is definitely going nowhere. Most of the people on these forums have 30 to 50 hours played and after this game is done those numbers are going even higher. This game is in the process of being built, I havent seen anything that has made me say, oh this is going downhill, there has been a decrease of players, and that is obvious, the game isn't finished, it becomes boring, but in two months once they add more content what do you think its going to happen, the players are going to cease to exist? No they're coming back to the game they've already bought it.

 

[IceNoVa]

You and the leaders of the trollboi fangaurd always swoop in and incite flaming, which is how the moderators end up being forced to act like communist censors.

You called, comrade?

I see you are having a lengthy debate, which is fine as long as all of you maintain a modest level of politeness before we need to demonstrate why our moderation flags are red.

 

[Emil]

Is Early Access unethical? Why get involved in an unethical enterprise?

Wasn't really my question. Want a question and response to your favorite word?
- Do you consider it being sensible to have a game which has been in developed for 8 years be released in Early Access? And upon release be a broken mess, and all the 78 updates, which I'd personally call by their true name; hotfixes, be glorified by the company as if they're way closer to a finalized product. Let's not forget how they treated PR and details about the game prior to the release; talking about crap and lore in half of the developer blogs (Remind me how many new quests / lore-related quests there are in-game again) All while keeping the EA-part hidden until a little less than two years prior to release, and further details surrounding SP (Not talking to modders) and MP (Not talking to communities) a couple of months prior to release (That's when we got ETA a year after EA release).

We won't know whether this will turn into DayZ (EA 10 years only to be a borked mess) or No Man's Sky (Redemption story) until a couple of years has passed, but considering Bannerlord player amount is down to what Warband had two years ago, they probably should've done some stuff different, maybe prioritized what made Warband great. But I expect the player population to rise when the previous two previously mentioned things are available. I'm very interested in hearing more about the mapmaker too, since it's quite obvious there are no autogenerated maps anymore.

Unethical? Maybe not. Dumb? Certainly.

 

[badman]

and all the 78 updates, which I'd personally call by their true name; hotfixes, be glorified by the company as if they're way closer to a finalized product.

I think this is the most worrying thing. I'm not convinced the game will even have any more content at this point. It's taking them months just to balance a sandbox.

 

[MostBlunted]

There was one new feature since the release "create kingdom", that´s all I can think of. But sadly it doesn´t make any sense to create your own kingdom because of other related stuff which doensn´t work or isn´t balanced.

 

[badman]

There was one new feature since the release "create kingdom", that´s all I can think of. But sadly it doesn´t make any sense to create your own kingdom because of other related stuff which won´t work or isn´t balanced.

Not to mention, it was already possible to create your own kingdom. They just made it simpler because the storyline is broken.

 

[MostBlunted]

Not to mention, it was already possible to create your own kingdom. They just made it simpler because the storyline is broken.

True, but we still need to give them credits for that, because it is a new feature, even if it just replaced the still broken main quest.

 

[badman]

True, but we still need to give them credits for that, because it is a new feature, even if it just replaced the still broken main quest.

maybe the next new feature can be "press button to destroy empire" then they don't have to balance the game and finish the main quest at all.

 

[MostBlunted]

maybe the next new feature can be "press button to destroy empire" then they don't have to balance the game and finish the main quest at all.

I don´t even expect a new feature for the next hotf... I mean update because:

We are currently working on getting the next patch ready. This should have a few incremental improvements that I believe the community will enjoy. (Just to preempt any misunderstanding - It will be similar in scope to prior patches.)

 

[musashii89]

I think this is the most worrying thing. I'm not convinced the game will even have any more content at this point. It's taking them months just to balance a sandbox.

This is the part that worries me. Havent even got the game stable and they are already throwing fat kids at the balance see saw, and for a sandbox....

 

[pjsjongsung]

I understand people can be angry, but I'm pretty sure Taleworlds aren't just drinking and eating. They live on customers who love their franchise, not any general gamer, and they would be trying their best to keep them from leaving.

 

[musashii89]

I understand people can be angry, but I'm pretty sure Taleworlds aren't just drinking and eating. They live on customers who love their franchise, not any general gamer, and they would be trying their best to keep them from leaving.

You assume they care about customers. Their actions have not pointed to this.

TWs name is now trash imo.

 

[Hodor NOT]

Just play a different game in the meantime.
I realized that it is just not worth it for me at the moment, so I chose to stop playing Bannerlord and check back every once in a while to see whats new. (It also keeps me from getting overly bored of Bannerlord and not appreciating future content. Maybe I will actually get more excited when I come back and see massively more features than when I left)

However, seeing that within two months barely anything happened confirms my decision.

 

[MostBlunted]

I´ll give it a next try with the next update, I´m still hoping they improve the gameplay (AI behavour, useful kids, fixing some known bugs, "better companions (no healer with 1 int), better combat/sieges) even if they don´t add any new feature.

But TW never fails to dissapoint me so let´s see.

 

[Brocephus]

They don't owe use anything necessarily but it sure would be nice to have some more transparency on what is going on since we have bought into early access. While they did a very nice job of addressing crashes and improving performance, most everything else in terms has looked quite ham-fisted. I'd like to see a detailed roadmap with a schedule, not just a half-assed list of thoughts. Many EA games share this type of information.

Of course these schedules change because you learn more about the tasks; sometimes they are easier than you thought but often they are more difficult. Sometimes tasks pop up that weren't planned or understood. All of this is fine. But, if you are disciplined in your development process, you can calculate your velocity and make some general predictions about what will be done. This holds the team accountable. Doing otherwise is chicken****.

Anyway, stop and think for a moment about the current burn rate. We're three months in and there roughly roughly 80 people working on the game in various capacities, right? That's 20 man-years of effort. For the sake of argument, cut that in half. 10 man-years of effort, so approximately equal to 5 people working on this for 2 years and, other than crash fixes and optimization, what has been produced? Not much. A couple of incomplete weapon perks trees. A few UI tweaks and some music? Simple **** remains broken for weeks. I'm actually a little embarrassed for them.

Also, I want to be clear that I'm not really ragging on the developers, at least not all of them. People like Duh_Taleworlds and Mexxico seem to really care and they sound like they're quite competent. I assume there are quite few more talented people behind the scenes. To me, it just looks like a leadership problem. Very disorganized and undisciplined. The whole thing feels like it needs a few scrum masters to grab it by the balls and get **** squared away.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Also, I want to be clear that I'm not really ragging on the developers, at least not all of them. People like Duh_Taleworlds and Mexxico seem to really care and they sound like they're quite competent. I assume there are quite few more talented people behind the scenes. To me, it just looks like a leadership problem. Very disorganized and undisciplined. The whole thing feels like it needs a few scrum masters to grab it by the balls and get **** squared away.

Here's an interesting tidbit that kind of proves your point:

Bannerlord uses a rendering technique which is at the cutting edge of graphical optimisations. Instead of animating stuff the normal way by using the CPU, they're writing all the animations to the GPU at runtime which I don't think I've seen a single game, not even a big budget title, accomplish thus far. It effectively allows them to spawn thousands and thousands of animated NPCs without impacting the tick rate of the game, which is what usually happens when you try to animate a lot of guys.

we have dynamic automatic instancing, the same meshes on the visible frustum are instanced together and drawn in single drawcall. The crafted weapons use same texture atlas, so we are batching parts (blade,pommel,etc) into one weapon mesh in cpu, after that they still instanced automatically.

dynamic meshes and skinned meshes are instanced too

we are doing compute shader skinning all the result are written into one big buffer, per draw calls we send starting offset of its transformed vertices.

we are using same idea for cloth simulated meshes, too

we worked on hard on these systems, cuz you know 500vs500 battles

without instancing draw calls will skyrocket

To put this into perspective, it's only in around 2014-2016 that compute shaders were even widely discussed, and finding stuff about compute shaders for animation is pretty hard. I think gkx and other developers at Taleworlds might have invented this method from scratch. In comparison, "modern" techniques like raytracing have been discussed and documented since the 1960s and you can effectively copy and paste code from the internet to get it working in your engine.

But what makes this so sad is that despite all this, the game still runs poorly in big battles because of the pathfinding, despite troops still getting stuck everywhere. There are pathfinding algorithms which have been optimised to hell and back for over 70 years. The skill level of the staff seems really uneven. You have people like gkx doing stuff that surpasses any triple A game, meanwhile the ingame weapons look really terrible and the AI is braindead.

 

[froggyluv]

How do we know how many developers are actively working post-EA release? Some may have been contracted for very specific purposes or lengths of time

 

[RozBritanicus]

I would rather have less patches and have one content full patch with fixes.