Dev Blog 16/08/18

[parsehtml]<p><img class="frame" src="https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_53_taleworldswebsite.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p>Gamescom is just around the corner and we are sure that many of you are eager to hear about what we will be showing at the event. Instead of stringing you along and leaving it as a surprise, we thought we would take a different approach this year by being upfront with you about what we will be presenting in Cologne.</p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/73

 

[Akesh the Cursed]

I was unaware that Creative Assembly was in the market for action oriented RPGs.

 

[Benjamin Bones]

I would rather put that effort into development and do a proper early access version.

This makes all the sense in the world to me especially if the game is more than a year and a half away from being finished. It would put (some of) the game in the hands of those who've been itching to play it for more than half a decade - and of course - would help with funding and debugging.

 

[Benjamin Bones]

Taleworlds will do a game to rule all games(I love this LOTR reference) better than Kingdom Come Deliverance all what CA release

I believe this to be true.

 

[Kortze26]

there are three things in this blog:

Spoiler

!!!Holy Duck, the way that horse armor is flexing around the moving legs!!!

Spoiler

!!!Calradia is complete!!!

Spoiler

!!!Sexy Live Horses!!!

 

[Sundeki]

I would rather put that effort into development and do a proper early access version.

Yes. Some sort of Early Access or a Beta, please. I'm one of these desperate ****s that will actually pay more for early access than the cost of base release, but I'm not sure if that is a good business model long-term.

 

[LAST_ACTION_HERO]

Just to clarify a few things, the build we'll have in the booth will be different from the current development build in that, some features and pieces of content have been disabled. There are mainly two reasons for this. First, we want to focus our efforts on polishing the features that will be of most use in the demo. Disabling the rest allows us better manage our resources and time. Second, we do not want to reveal all the features and content in a single demo. We'd rather leave a good portion of the game as a surprise.

Here's a list of some of the things that are missing/disabled: 
Sieges
Crafting
Character generation
Kingdom and town management
About 2/3 of town scenes. We selected 2 town scenes per culture and all towns will be showing those.
Most companions are disabled. There will be around 10 that are available.
About 2/3 of planned perks are not yet implemented.

Thanks for this clarity! As exciting as the blog was, this post was more informative for me.  At first glance, the blog made it seem that the game was almost feature complete and ready for short-term public scrutiny of all aspects.  What I gathered from this was that a release was on the horizon, understandibly I was back on the hype train to possible destination dissapointment.

Being clear with us about what is being left out of the demo and why is greatly appreciated and one step closer towards managing expectations instead of stringing us along.  I'll expect a release later rather than sooner after seeing the  inevitably awesome Gamescom footage.  (I wish this was the case in 2016 haha)

Kinda was wondering about this too, like we might know next week how close they are or not... well my hopes are still up for more infos next week. Maybe the 1/3 they not showing they still working on or its not completed in a playable Version. 

 

[Sundeki]

Maybe the 1/3 they not showing they still working on or its not completed in a playable Version. 

Nah, 2/3 of the scenes/perks are missing, not completed.

 

[Whatever makes you happy]

The full game will apparently have 6 towns per faction. That's definitely an improvement over warband as expected. Not to mention the abundance of villages. I wonder if the demo limits village scenes as well. It wasn't explicitly mentioned, but I imagine it's very likely.

 

[LAST_ACTION_HERO]

Maybe the 1/3 they not showing they still working on or its not completed in a playable Version. 

Nah, 2/3 of the scenes/perks are missing, not completed.

I miss read that... thanks for the correction, well lets see what next week brings then we get a clearer picture or at least know what is going on.

 

[FBohler]

I was not expecting an early access to happen to be honest

and you still shouldnt expect one, as his post was talking about what he rather do, not what he is actually going to do. Big difference 

in short: EA is a maybe (before today it was a very unlikely maybe)

+1

 

[kXlIdRoberta // Seb Merc]

Wow, if they release an early access during or right after Gamescom I would buy it in a heartbeat 

 

[NPC99]

Many thanks to everyone for their comments. The team here is working really hard to get the demo ready for Gamescom and we really appreciate your support.

Just to clarify a few things, the build we'll have in the booth will be different from the current development build in that, some features and pieces of content have been disabled. There are mainly two reasons for this. First, we want to focus our efforts on polishing the features that will be of most use in the demo. Disabling the rest allows us better manage our resources and time. Second, we do not want to reveal all the features and content in a single demo. We'd rather leave a good portion of the game as a surprise.

Here's a list of some of the things that are missing/disabled: 
Sieges
Crafting
Character generation
Kingdom and town management
About 2/3 of town scenes. We selected 2 town scenes per culture and all towns will be showing those.
Most companions are disabled. There will be around 10 that are available.
About 2/3 of planned perks are not yet implemented.

The suggestion to release this version as a demo sounds interesting, but that doesn't fit any existing model and it would take a lot of time and effort to hammer out the details and make this work. I would rather put that effort into development and do a proper early access version.

Thanks for your clarification, Armagan. I'm eager to bug hunt an early access version as soon as you're prepared to let us loose inside it. 

 

[Harmi]

This sounds so amazing news! Please make sure that the features are really not only disabled, but also removed from the demo. I really don't wanna see people hacking the demo to get full access on things.

 

[Rebus34]

HYPE!Anyway let's hope it won't take too long before the game is released,even if i(i think most of the players do) prefer more a well developed game in a long time period than a game with bugs developed in a short time period, so don't worry about it, and  i'm eager to buy the game 

 

[vicwiz007]

Wait only 10 companions will be available? Weird, does this mean the whole generated thing has been scrapped? I find that hard to believe based on what weve seen/heard.

 

[Ammsamdoij]

Now just release demo to public! 

 

[FBohler]

Wait only 10 companions will be available? Weird, does this mean the whole generated thing has been scrapped? I find that hard to believe based on what weve seen/heard.

This means either the system isn't fully functional yet or that it doesn't make sense in a 30 minute long single run.

 

[Harmi]

Wait only 10 companions will be available? Weird, does this mean the whole generated thing has been scrapped? I find that hard to believe based on what weve seen/heard.

They need to add some artificial limitations to the demo so that people don't get the full experience of the free demo version of the game. It's just fair. They don't allow anyone to make spoilers.

 

[Rabies]

We'd rather leave a good portion of the game as a surprise.

[...]

I would rather put that effort into development and do a proper early access version.

I'm wondering if there is any contradiction between (maybe) wanting to do an early access version, and wanting to keep game features a surprise?

I guess it depends whether the EA version were feature complete, so just a bug-splatting process, or whether you'd be taking player feedback on more major changes and feature additions?

Personally, I think I'd prefer to wait longer for a feature-complete version to play, rather than just get my hands on anything at the earliest opportunity. (At least in terms of the single-player game - I'd be more than happy to test a less complete MP-only or SP Custom Battle version.)

 

[monoolho]

Spoiler

!!!Holy Duck, the way that horse armor is flexing around the moving legs!!!

Spoiler

!!!Calradia is complete!!!

YES!. It seems so, at least.

I wouldn't care too much about early access, if it comes, it comes and I'll buy it, regardless of bonuses, though it would be enjoyable to have some 20% off for adopting early and reporting each and every bug. I would not mind that at all. That's how much I love me some Mount & Blade. Especially with an in-game report function that could send screencaps of the game.
But I rather prefer the traditional approach: launch the game as close to perfection as possible (within the available timeframe). This is the game that I'll be buying full price as soon as the "add to cart" button appears on steam, and depending on the price and dollar/euro conversion rate, I might even buy it directly from TW once more.

I do get that feeling that TW working on a demo or early access version would be counterproductive... It would seem like mismanaged time that could go into other stuff.

Really hope to see some videos from gamescom, it's always great to watch stuff. A question for someone who skipped ~120 posts on the thread: will people be able to record their playtime and share it? It'd be cool having dozens of videos from different people (of which only 6 would be worthwile anyway), especially since you've allowed some minor sandboxing for 30 minutes.

LET US WATCH SOME BANDITS BEING MURDERED