A Message to Taleworlds About the Ambiguity of the Development Process and the Plans Going Forward

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AlexanderTournier

I'm rather curios about the future of this game, before I touch on that though, let me address the lack of communication and dishonesty that lead up to the launch of this game. The state in which this game released for investment from the public was abhorrent. It was, in every way, a disastrous game at it's launch, only being shielded from criticism by the years long hype from a very passionate and forgiving community. Early Access is essentially an open call for the public to invest in a "product" that promises to be something that will worth their upfront investment at the end of it's development cycle. You know what you do to earn the trust of your investors? You tell them the truth. Nothing about this game worked at it's launch, nothing. Every single skill was unimplemented, basic game mechanics were non-functional and crushes happend every 30 minutes. Not a single word about the state of the game was uttered before it's launch, only vague promises about it's future. You know what they call this in well regulated markets? A scam. I have no doubts that the approach Taleworlds chosen was well-intentioned, guys there have been pouring their time and energy to this game for years. Yet, nothing can change the fact that this game under delivered in respect to it's officially promised futures, not to mention the futures previous games had. Many promised futures have been seemingly, unceremoniously canceled and removed from the public eye without a passing notice. I don't care how many internal builds you scraped or how many critical personnel you bleed before the release. The game that was delivered at the launch had no excuses. Not even bothering to put up a warning about the state of the game had no excuses. Taleworlds isn't the chubby indie studio with half a dosen people working on a passion project anymore. This company has 100+ employees at it's payroll and had one of the most successful cult classics of all time. The lack of communication leading up to the games launch is unforgiveable. Releasing a "dev blog" every Thursday that talked a lot but didn't specify a single thing wasn't the kind of communication needed. The community has been so passionate and patient with this game and understanding of it's arduous development process. Yet, some of the members of this community have complained about many things before the launch of this game, which in my opinion didn't meant diddly-squat. You can't complain about something that hasn't been officially released in a public forum and which you haven't made some sort of investment in. Now, however, I and others have paid our dues to get access to this project before it's official completion. Effectively, paying to be your beta testers. Despite that fact, as the benefactors of this yet-to-be-completed project, we have been given no clear development map, this is on top of the dishonesty that preceded the games launch. I can understand not specifying which features in what manners were planned to be implemented before the launch, as the hype from it could've caused more harm than good. But, now that this project has been opened for public investment, you owe your investors clear answers. As the recent open letter from prominent modders have clearly demonstrated the unworkable state in which this game currently is, in respect to modding. I want to know what other promised or otherwise implied features doesn't work as intended, or has been removed from development map entirely. This game has to stand on it's own feet. I have never installed a single mod in my 1500~ hours with this series. You can't delegate certain features as "modding features" and expect them to be delivered by modders. I want to know what you're planning to do, now that the Early Access campaign enters it's 1st year anniversary. The fact that you're also working on an "Unannounced Project" does not inspire confidence in me.

I demand, as one of your benefactors, that you release a clear road-map of what you're planning to do, leading up to the full release, as soon as possible. And communicate clearly as to what you're doing, going forward. This isn't the pre-release game anymore, people paid you for your promises and didn't even complain about your dishonesty. I don't care about your worries of not being able to deliver what you promise, that is your problem. We, as your investors and benefactors, deserve to know.

Release a clear road-map and promise to be honest and open about what you're going to do, going forward. Or, refund my and any other requesting investors purchases, there is no other alternative to this. It's high time that you act like a responsible company and do what is been asked of you by your benefactors.

Best of whishes for you and your loved ones health,

Alexander Tournier

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They're adding specific terrain maps to different parts of the map.
Someday we'll get to tell our clan parties to stop raiding.
We might get to have pre-battle placement.
We might finally get some improvement to skills and/or the character development system.
You can't have a roadmap into uncharted territory :wink:
 
I have never installed a single mod in my 1500~ hours with this series. You can't delegate certain features as "modding features" and expect them to be delivered by modders.
Look on the bright side, if you had played Warband with mods, you would have been dumbfounded with disappointment. You vanilla players have it easy.
I demand, as one of your benefactors, that you release a clear road-map of what you're planning to do
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You can't have a roadmap into uncharted territory :wink:
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We might get to have pre-battle placement.
We might finally get some improvement to skills and/or the character development system.
You can't have a roadmap into uncharted territory :wink:
Can you see the problem with your language? "We might" get it or we might not but the crucial part is we don't know. We have no idea about the extent of this projects development and what is planned or have already been canceled with us not even knowing. All the while they are pouring resources intended for this project into another "Unannounced Project". This mentality of giving complete freedom to the developer only works before a monetized public release like the one we are in, otherwise it'll turn into Star Citizen or Project Zomboid.

Look on the bright side, if you had played Warband with mods, you would have been dumbfounded with disappointment. You vanilla players have it easy.
I presume that I would be "dumbfounded with disappointment" about vanilla versions of M&B games if I were to play with mods, as you say, but that is my problem. On the other hand, meming and joking in support of a mismanaged project that has no clear public road map and a finish line insight is, if you pardon my bluntness, is the behaviour of a sheep. We deserve to know what is going on with development and deserve a clear roadmap.
 
I presume that I would be "dumbfounded with disappointment" about vanilla versions of M&B games if I were to play with mods, as you say, but that is my problem. On the other hand, meming and joking in support of a mismanaged project that has no clear public road map and a finish line insight is, if you pardon my bluntness, is the behaviour of a sheep. We deserve to know what is going on with development and deserve a clear roadmap.
Well, I hope humorless grandstanding works better than joking.
If you spent five minutes looking around this forum you would see the same outrage in many threads, so I don't see how your specific statement of outrage does anything and calling people sheep won't make your views more popular.
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Ah, yes, let's write a wall of text (because that was never done before on this forum on that very same topic) and then proceed to antagonize forum veterans who agree with what you said. That oughta do the trick and finally turn Bannerlord into what it was meant to be, I don't know why we didn't think about this 8 years ago.
 
Well, I hope humorless grandstanding works better than joking.
If you spent five minutes looking around this forum you would see the same outrage in many threads, so I don't see how your specific statement of outrage does anything and calling people sheep won't make your views more popular.
I get the jokes, humour is the perfect way to approach such a poignant post. Defusing the situation is always the best option after all. It's just that the non-critical way the core community approaches this games huge disappointments kinda gets to my nerves sometimes. Sorry about the sheep thing btw, didn't meant it strictly as an insult, although I'm aware it got across as such.
 
Ah, yes, let's write a wall of text (because that was never done before on this forum on that very same topic) and then proceed to antagonize forum veterans who agree with what you said. That oughta do the trick and finally turn Bannerlord into what it was meant to be, I don't know why we didn't think about this 8 years ago.
Just writing my opinion, I don't really care someone else talked about it before. You're right about the insult bit though, very uncivil of me.
 
Just writing my opinion, I don't really care someone else talked about it before. You're right about the insult bit though, very uncivil of me.
Well I appreciate the self awareness at least. The thing is that people on this forum are for the most part very critical of the game. You are kind of bursting through an open door here. Taleworlds have their "vision", whatever that might mean, they are reading our feedback but what they will do with it is anyone's guess. And it's not like there is any legal commitment that they have to respect, Early Access is pretty much an honor system.

Warband was a great game, right after release I knew that Bannerlord was a total mess but I was hopeful that they would figure things out and deliver a good product, they did it with the previous titles after all. Now... I am not so sure. I guess that time will tell.
 
Well I appreciate the self awareness at least. The thing is that people on this forum are for the most part very critical of the game. You are kind of bursting through an open door here. Taleworlds have their "vision", whatever that might mean, they are reading our feedback but what they will do with it is anyone's guess. And it's not like there is any legal commitment that they have to respect, Early Access is pretty much an honor system.

Warband was a great game, right after release I knew that Bannerlord was a total mess but I was hopeful that they would figure things out and deliver a good product, they did it with the previous titles after all. Now... I am not so sure. I guess that time will tell.
Yep. That's kinda why I'm trying to lobby them to release some sort of a road map to full release. At least a passing commitment to some sort of a grand public plan to release would give some clearity to things.
 
@AlexanderTournier Buying an early access game does not make you an "investor" nor does it give you the authority to make demands to the devs. If a comprehensive roadmap was so important to you, then why did you buy the game before you saw one? Sounds like you knew there was uncertainty regarding the content that would be added, but you signed up for early access anyway. Obviously, the game being early access means that it's in an unfinished state, so the first half of your essay complaining about EA launch is invalid--you're not paying for the launch, you're paying for the final product in advance. Regardless if one year has passed, early access is not going to end for several months at least, and even after, the game will most likely be supported and added to anyway.

You should find something else to do besides "lobbying" (harassing) the devs because this type of post is extremely toxic. I'm pretty sure you know that though, as you use negativity to try to punish the devs for not following everything you want them to do. If you want to make a suggestion, then just give it and it will be taken into consideration. But beyond that, it is the choice of TW whether they will implement it. All this extra pressure and criticism is not only unnecessary but counterproductive because any points you do manage to make will be disregarded.
 
A lot of words...

Could have saved the OP some time to just do a forum search for "cry" and added a +1 to another thread.
 
Heh!
I still remember when TW said they were polishing the game at least 6 months before going early access.
 
@Cronus, I see and understand your point and respect your right to share your opinion, but I must disagree.

Firstly, Early Access does make me a benefactor of this project. One of the major reasons for the existence of EA in the first place is to gather funds to complete an *incomplete* project. Another major reason for it's existence is to gather ideas and feedback from the projects benefactors to forge a roadmap. I knew the non-existence of a roadmap and bought into the project, but I was lead to believe, like many others, that the project was far closer to completion than it actually was. By going back and looking at the pre-release blog posts you can clearly see that Taleworlds have deliberately given an impression of near completion and a clear sence of competency in terms of its direction, which turned out to be a big sham. "we expect that the game will be in early access for around a year" is not something you can say for this games release
version.

By saying "you're paying for the final product in advance" you only support the fact that Early Access is a public investment call. Public is paying in advance for the promise of a complete "product", and they have all the right in world to know how things are going and how things are planned to be in the final release. We have all the right in the world to get a public and clear roadmap, we payed for the *privilege* to know it.

If dissenting to complete ambiguity for the future plans of something *I payed to gain the privilege to know and shape the future plans of* is a toxic and harassing contrarian-like behavior, than count me as one. They don't have to do what I tell them to do but they, by their choice of publication, owe me a listen.

I already made some suggestion, over 3 dozen of them in fact, you can find them here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...r-discussion-is-welcomed.440399/#post-9657412
and here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/we-need-to-talk-about-the-lords.440457/

If they are going to disregard my request for a public roadmap than, here and again, I ask them to offer me and other requesting investors a way to refund our purchases. I did not pay to become a benefactor of this project to stay in the dark, they owe me and the community a response, @Callum owes us a response.
 
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