Bannerlord was a grift

[granitestone]

Imagine if Taleworlds cranked out gameplay like Notch did (by himself in the 2009-2011 era), or like Wube (20 people who made Factorio).

M&B is so popular and it's like the only series in its genre. I don't understand why a real game company, or even an industrious indie, doesn't take this concept and run with it.

 

[Apocal]

M&B is so popular and it's like the only series in its genre. I don't understand why a real game company, or even an industrious indie, doesn't take this concept and run with it.

I assume because you can't just count on something like Unity or Unreal to crank the game out; having hundreds of agents running around at acceptable graphical quality is kinda hard, technically (AIUI).

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

There are actually quite a lot of warband clones, but what makes them crappy isn't so much the technical challenges (warband sized battles are possible on mobile now), it's the fact that warband actually has a lot more systems than people give it credit for. Just setting up the transition between battles and campaign map is quite a pain in the ass, and in mnb/warband it's a mess of spaghetti code even after 7 years of development. Most amateur game developers (myself included) are okay at coding but not great at scripting. This is why you see more games that are influenced by warbands combat but without the campaign map, like For Honor, or bizzare but fun Chinese MMOs like Conquerer's Blade.

 

[Mad Vader]

Imagine if Taleworlds cranked out gameplay like Notch did (by himself in the 2009-2011 era), or like Wube (20 people who made Factorio).

M&B is so popular and it's like the only series in its genre. I don't understand why a real game company, or even an industrious indie, doesn't take this concept and run with it.

It's only a matter of time. So far, the attempts were MP cash grabs or poorly designed indie games.
This will change for the better after the great sales of Bannerlord showing great player interest AND its disappointing quality which opens up this niche market for others.

 

[Roy1012]

It's only a matter of time. So far, the attempts were MP cash grabs or poorly designed indie games.
This will change for the better after the great sales of Bannerlord showing great player interest AND its disappointing quality which opens up this niche market for others.

Will it though? We're a year and a half into bannerlord's severe disappointment, and yet no real "clones" with a serious chance of getting a good market share have come to pass. Not even an announcement to my knowledge. I don't know if its as certain as you make it out to be.

 

[Namakan]

Will it though? We're a year and a half into bannerlord's severe disappointment, and yet no real "clones" with a serious chance of getting a good market share have come to pass. Not even an announcement to my knowledge. I don't know if its as certain as you make it out to be.

not every company annouces their games 8 years early I guess

 

[Mad Vader]

Will it though? We're a year and a half into bannerlord's severe disappointment, and yet no real "clones" with a serious chance of getting a good market share have come to pass. Not even an announcement to my knowledge. I don't know if its as certain as you make it out to be.

I find your lack of faith in market forces disturbing.

 

[Roy1012]

not every company annouces their games 8 years early I guess

This actually did make me laugh out loud

I find your lack of faith in market forces disturbing.

*Throat cracks*

 

[kreamy]

just happy this thread is still alive

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Will it though? We're a year and a half into bannerlord's severe disappointment, and yet no real "clones" with a serious chance of getting a good market share have come to pass. Not even an announcement to my knowledge. I don't know if its as certain as you make it out to be.

I agree, "market forces" are just a fairytale at the best of times but in video games it seems to apply even less. It can take years for the most profitable games to get lots of clones, while developers often chase ancient trends long after they're relevant or popular.

There were still tonnes of Saving Private Ryan spectacle shooters well into the 2010s, zombie games long after zombie media had stopped being a trend, and generic traditional RTSs well into the Obama era.
Meanwhile there are no Sims clones, no big budget Paradox competitors, and for a long time nothing close to Total War. The Sims is a money printer, probably EA's biggest cash cow, and the other two arent far behind.

Video games follow trends. If something doesn't become a trend (for whatever reason) it just doesn't get cloned, even by indies. While Warband is nowhere near as orphaned as The Sims, for whatever reason only a handful of developers have decided to use the formula.

 

[julijs]

Battle Brothers.. If only they released a sequel, which included more than just guild master equivalent quests' perhaps maybe with Warband and Bannerlord mechanics and whole sieges that would remind me of the Warhammer Table-top series.

other than that, the closest we have that's related to the mount & blade genre is the upcoming Wartales game.

There actually was attempts to make a type of forerunner to mount & blade: warband, of kings and men, but we all know how that ended.

 

[Mad Vader]

I agree, "market forces" are just a fairytale at the best of times but in video games it seems to apply even less. It can take years for the most profitable games to get lots of clones, while developers often chase ancient trends long after they're relevant or popular.

Your socialist outlook will only cause you pain when Electronic Arts takes over the world because they paid attention to the market.

There were still tonnes of Saving Private Ryan spectacle shooters well into the 2010s, zombie games long after zombie media had stopped being a trend, and generic traditional RTSs well into the Obama era.
Meanwhile there are no Sims clones, no big budget Paradox competitors, and for a long time nothing close to Total War. The Sims is a money printer, probably EA's biggest cash cow, and the other two arent far behind.

That's interesting, but Sims may compete with casual games for girls on one side and the multitude of colony management sim copies of Banished on the other side, some of which are clearly scams. I'm not sure if there's a room for improvement in the middle ground the Sims are holding, so no competition either.
By the way, colony sims are another trend that gets undue production.
A counter-example of replacing a monopolist is Skylines beating SimCity. Now that's a niche genre just like the one we all love.

Video games follow trends. If something doesn't become a trend (for whatever reason) it just doesn't get cloned, even by indies. While Warband is nowhere near as orphaned as The Sims, for whatever reason only a handful of developers have decided to use the formula.

People really like money, especially when there's a money pie as large as Bannerlord's there for the taking.
The problem is it obviously takes a lot of effort and know-how to create a good engine and then produce content with plenty of work on graphics and scripting. The indies can't get the production values of Bannerlord unless they crowdfund like Chris Roberts, but they could create more interesting gameplay and fighting mechanics.

 

[Askorti]

It's only a matter of time. So far, the attempts were MP cash grabs or poorly designed indie games.
This will change for the better after the great sales of Bannerlord showing great player interest AND its disappointing quality which opens up this niche market for others.

It's disappointing quality to forum dwellers like us. But most people appear to be quite happy with how Bannerlord is turning out.
I would not be surprised if nobody is trying to copy Warband and Bannerlord because one, it's too much hassle and hard work to pull off well, and two, it seems to be doing too well to be possible to displace.
Kinda like with the Sims, which is an absolute and undisputed hegemon in its narrow genre, Taleworlds games might be exactly that in its even smaller and narrower niche.

 

[eddiemccandless]

It's disappointing quality to forum dwellers like us. But most people appear to be quite happy with how Bannerlord is turning out.

Maybe the forum dwellers with time and inclination for such endeavors should just go on and build their own Mount And Blade clone then. It would the ultimate middle finger towards TW's disgrace of a game.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

That's interesting, but Sims may compete with casual games for girls on one side and the multitude of colony management sim copies of Banished on the other side, some of which are clearly scams. I'm not sure if there's a room for improvement in the middle ground the Sims are holding, so no competition either.

The Sims fans are some of the angriest, most bitter people on earth and it's not just PMS. It's the only real family simulator game that exists, and it's also a horrendous cashgrab with DLCs that would make Paradox blush. It's one of those "I wish I could play an actual good game to get this fix" type of deals where all the fans are desperate to jump ship, but they're in the middle of the ocean. I think you're right in that it competes with colony management games, but only in the same way that warband competes with Total War.

 

[Memoefe]

Your fourth point, time explains all other points. The development of the game started so long ago that the investment they made in to the game was really risky, they probably didn't even know how ambitious they should be. Every big feature that is planned for the game increases the duration of development thus chance of going bankrupt. Yeah they earned a lot of money, but they didn't know how much they would earn until the release. In an interview after the launch a developer said they earned 4-5 times of expected.

The risk they took on a project so large, in a country with the largest economic fluctuation, without any prior large project experiment, without having anybody to consult (because the game development in turkey besides Taleworlds doesn't exist) is a one hell of a job.

I mean look at CD project Red, they had a huge hype behind them (which guaranteed income), They had ambition, they had time, they had better prior experience than Taleworlds but they still ****ed up Cyberpunk 2077(several times worse than bannerlord imo).

Yeah I think there are a lot of missing features that would be relatively easy to add, and they are slow af, but they are not near being scam, grift or any other fancy word you can choose to cover your non-sense statement.

 

[julijs]

Yeah I think there are a lot of missing features that would be relatively easy to add, and they are slow af, but they are not near being scam, grift or any other fancy word you can choose to cover your non-sense statement.

You entirely missed the point.

 

[Apocal]

There are actually quite a lot of warband clones,

I meant Bannerlord.

Obviously I know about all the Warband clones, including the greatest one of them all:

There is no man in this game

 

[Roy1012]

It's disappointing quality to forum dwellers like us. But most people appear to be quite happy with how Bannerlord is turning out.
I would not be surprised if nobody is trying to copy Warband and Bannerlord because one, it's too much hassle and hard work to pull off well, and two, it seems to be doing too well to be possible to displace.
Kinda like with the Sims, which is an absolute and undisputed hegemon in its narrow genre, Taleworlds games might be exactly that in its even smaller and narrower niche.

That’s just not true. Why, if most people are happy with the game, is multiplayer completely dead? Why do the player counts for bannerlord continue to drop? Do you have any proof for this?

 

[Askorti]

That’s just not true. Why, if most people are happy with the game, is multiplayer completely dead? Why do the player counts for bannerlord continue to drop? Do you have any proof for this?

Player count drops for pretty much any game after its release. I mean, you could say this about just about any game that sold very well. They all slowly bleed players. Some retain them better than others through expansions, DLCs and updates than others, but generally speaking games always lose players over time, no matter how good they are. That's because of the extremely simple fact: A game is usually the most popular shortly after release, because that's when the hype is. This of course does not apply to sleeper hits, that usually come from the indie market.

Recent steam reviews are still at 82%, which is plenty high. Not as good as the overall score of 87%, but not bad either. In the past 30 days alone you got over 2000 new reviews of the game. If people weren't playing, you'd not get so many reviews. Also, it is still among the most played games on steam, with today's peak at 18k concurrent players. Obviously it is nowhere near the post-release numbers, but only an idiot would expect them to keep those....
https://steamcharts.com/app/261550#All here you have a chart of concurrent steam players. It's actually stayed surprisingly level for the past months.

Most people are happy with the game despite MP being garbage because most people don't give a **** about the MP. Same as TW.