Dev Blog 29/03/19

[parsehtml]<p><img class="frame" src="https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_83_taleworldswebsite.jpg" alt="" width="575" height="290" /></p> <p>While Bannerlord’s singleplayer campaign offers great adventures to all, for many players, nothing quite matches the excitement of testing their skills against human opponents in Mount & Blade’s engaging multiplayer matches. In this week’s blog, we want to take a look at Skirmish mode, which is a brand new multiplayer game mode for the upcoming Bannerlord...</p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/103

 

[Noudelle]

Balancing the game around low level players stupid. If they are low level then they do not know all the basic game mechanics and usually end up saying stupid stuff, since they don't know what they are talking about in the first place.

I unfortunately have to agree with you there.

For example, look at all the players that complain about Cav and Archers in multiplayer. Everytime someone tells them to "bring a shield" or "use a spear to counter the Cav" they always go on a rage fit and say stupid crap.

Is that a fact?

This isn't a triple A studio with a massive marketing budget, a free to play game with appeal to teens or the next game by one of the largest companies in the business. It's a relatively niche and obscure indie title with some word-of-mouth.

niche

Lol theres 400 comments on the blogs on Steam every week and we are still talking about a game that was announced 6 years ago. There is clearly still interest in it that will without any doubt skyrocket when the release date is announced.

Correction: RELATIVELY niche
The degree to which M&B is a niche game is debatable, but the fact that Bannerlord has hundreds of Steam comments each week in no way disqualifies it from being a niche game.

Edit: Wording

 

[Do not look here]

I think people have too much of a 0-1 approach, it's not about giving betas only to the new players or only to the hardcore fans, you need testers from across the board. If the complaints come from players that aren't yet used to the game, then, with feedback from the vets, devs can decide whether an issue lies in mechanics or the fact that they aren't transparent enough.

 

[Pen_of_Darkness]

Everyone who is worried about the beta and multiplayer come check out my thread https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,382805.0.html

 

[SenorZorros]

I think people have too much of a 0-1 approach, it's not about giving betas only to the new players or only to the hardcore fans, you need testers from across the board. If the complaints come from players that aren't yet used to the game, then, with feedback from the vets, devs can decide whether an issue lies in mechanics or the fact that they aren't transparent enough.

I'd agree with this
I do recognise there is a real need for hardcore fans. but they are far from the main demographic. There is certainly something to be said for transparency and easy of access. It's mostly that I saw everyone argue top-level play is king and wanted to counter that narrative.

But regarding balance they are not that useful because what is balanced on the top-level might not be fun for the average player.

Balancing the game around low level players stupid. If they are low level then they do not know all the basic game mechanics and usually end up saying stupid stuff, since they don't know what they are talking about in the first place. For example, look at all the players that complain about Cav and Archers in multiplayer. Everytime someone tells them to "bring a shield" or "use a spear to counter the Cav" they always go on a rage fit and say stupid crap.

This isn't a triple A studio with a massive marketing budget, a free to play game with appeal to teens or the next game by one of the largest companies in the business. It's a relatively niche and obscure indie title with some word-of-mouth.

niche

Lol theres 400 comments on the blogs on Steam every week and we are still talking about a game that was announced 6 years ago. There is clearly still interest in it that will without any doubt skyrocket when the release date is announced.

Waband sold 6 million copies and that's mostly because it got carried by the single player. Chivalry sold similar numbers.
cs;go sold 25 million copies 2,5 years ago. Overwatch sold 35 million copies 1,5 years ago. lol has 200 million accounts. couldn't find dota but they have a million concurrent players. compared to that the less than a thousand concurrent players for warband are nothing. Yeah, compared to these games warband is very much a niche.

It's difficult to get numbers but a back of the envelope calculation already gives a development cost of at least ten of million. euro

隐藏: back of the envelope

(70workers*16000average yearly salary for a software developer in turkey*10years development time)=11200000; assuming a game sells for an average 15 euro (considering sales and regional pricing an extremely optimistic estimate indeed) and the 70% cut that would mean you need slightly more than a million sales.

A million sales is certainly reachable, but to do so you need mass-market appeal. The multiplayer seems to have a couple hundred concurrent players online. Of course it's an old game so it might be lower, but even if it was tenfold that wouldn't be enough to break even. Luckily the game can get carried by the single player and a million copies is certainly reachable. but if it's the single player that brings in the money Taleworlds would be better of scrapping multiplayer altogether.
So if the games needs to sell so many copies it needs to appeal to the mass. And yes that means those spear and shieldless idiots. If the game isn't fun on the level of the average dumb player they won't play and if they won't play the game won't sell. Both casuals and the hardcore fans pay the same entrance fee and if Taleworlds doesn't want to use micro-transactions (which I hope they don't use) it means that they need broad appeal. Which means you will have to make sure the game is fun on the lower levels primary and top-level play is of secondary importance.
The only exceptions would be if they want to make Bannerlord a free to play E-sports focussed game like lol and dota since you always get larger playerbases if it's free and the top-level play would be advertising the game. But there's relatively little money in that and you need brand recognition. also, it would probably ruin the game.

Of course a lot of frustration can be removed by better UI and tutorials replacing angry teammates shouting unclear advice. Classes make it less easy to make stupid choices even if they do limit options and hopefully Taleworlds has both proper matchmaking and a marketing budget. But that doesn't take away that the enjoyment of the main playerbase is more relevant for the game's success that the few veteran payers.

 

[zoliav]

People exciting about "closed multiplayer beta"??? What a big joke. Look back other blog, i see DEV try hard to "look, im care about small thing like rein flapping" but the spear still can go inside horse make something look like horse dong flapping, nice work, how about care about basic thing like finishing singleplayer before multiplayer that no one plays? Try to turn this to pvp base game? Battle royale? Moba? Is this really progression? So they done the base game? Or they go blind and "oh today i want work at this, tomorow i want work at other idea pop in my mind, the old work can wait, next day im gonna work on other thing i just pop from some part of me, work of yesterday can wait" is that it? The dev need team leader to guide them into finishing the game instead of working random points of unfinished work.

When I was a little boy my mother beat my ass with a bamboo stick if I don't work hard focus on school but now if you work lazy and skip school you get a high paying job as a game developer making unfinished games. As a vietnamese I am sad for the future of the world.

I live in a country where government censors websites I go to and I read the game news through google machine translator and I see lazyness and excitement over stupid thing unlike hard working vietnamese who work hard to live through any means

In short, finish the game before making extras like horse strings and 6v6 multiplayer,

 

[xdj1nn]

wow, these recruits act like crack-addicts demanding the game, it's astonishing 

At least I was here back in 2012!? to see the whole shbang being teased, I was here when they've started the pseudo-announcements followed by excuses, and even so I am not flipping like this... First, it's just a game, secondly, no one has paid anything to them yet, so we don't even apply as costumers. thirdly, those who think like I do take some degree of offense towards the lying, but we do not think that they owe us anything, so demanding something and bashing for their choices of testing the game seems quite retarded, but then again, to each their own I guess... The most prominent result of giving these childish tantrums is earning perma-bans and mutes, nothing else...

Chill out, read some of our posts around, we've talked about so many aspects, a single blog announcing a beta is a good thing, means it might be closer to release, on the other hand, being a Vet on Mourn&Waiting, I don't really believe that, so it makes no difference to me. And even if I'm wrong, I'm not THAT likely to get selected for a closed beta, and considering I only really care about the SP aspect of the game, I don't think I'd be very happy in a closed beta for MP testing, still, I'm not crying because I could be excluded nor because they've decided that they need community input for combat and to do so they've decided to go for MP (which makes sense, much easier to get a running MP mode for the game than a massive open world sandbox for SP testing since the objective there is testing combat)

Kids these days are so fragile... Man-up recruit! 

PS: I'm not celebrating nor happy about the Beta, I'm indifferent, not that hard to be indifferent.

 

[Reus]

... (text) ...

Please condense your messages into one post rather than posting four separate ones in a row. It's unnecessary and considered to be spam.

 

[Waldemard]

Oh nice, I'd love to see 1PP only  skirmish !

 

[aaaa1]

The flags that disappear will probably be the first 2 captured?

Nope. I mean, I could tell you, but perhaps it will be better if you figure it out yourself. With some clever play you can really use the mechanic to your advantage (we have done it a few times to other teams in the office).

Hi Callum, thanks for the blog.
If I am not wrong closed beta means only number of people can join it right ?
Who will join to the closed beta ?
Hopefully not people who have never played any M&B games before.

why wouldn't there be newbies testing the beta? inn the end TW might want to make the game interesting for all kind of audiences



how many devs are to be interviewed yet?

 

[Mart00]

People seem to be running around in circles
Yes there should be higher and lower level players in the beta.
No warband shouldn't be balanced around newbie players this will only make the game to easy for most people and lower it's apeal.
This does not mean that new players shouldn't be able to understand what's happening or be able to have a good time.

 

[Orion]

Will the pick me for beta messages be removed from different topics where beta isn't discussed?
This is getting annoying

I'm keeping them concentrated in one place in the Bannerlord discussion board, mainly because it's light-hearted but also if I close it then I have nothing to merge new threads into.

 

[MrGunner2You]

Fingers crossed I could get in.. TaleWorlds... help me help you 

 

[MackCW]

Is there any chance for Bannerlord modders to get the tools (e.g. character export-import scripts for Blender, Maya, whatever) with this beta version?
I think John M. would have a good use of it in making Kingdoms of Arda.

You know, just to add some tangible benefits with this beta for future single player experience.

Whether this happens or not, some modders going through the beta selection process would still be very handy to get across the game's scope.

This is what I am hoping as well.

 

[黑影龙凤]

黑影龙凤,

You have received a warning for spamming in regards to the message:
Re: Dev Blog 29/03/19.

他人还有这是 ? 不爆吧也

English administrator what is this?

 

[vicwiz007]

So is the pink Taleworlds logo at the top left an April Fools thing or is it the new logo for real? I approve either way

Edit: Oh **** yeah i got my answer after seeing my avatar

 

[KhergitLancer80]

So is the pink Taleworlds logo at the top left an April Fools thing or is it the new logo for real? I approve either way

it is april fools. Werent you around last year ?

Edit: Maybe it is because Erdogan lost both Istanbul and Ankara and many other major cities to opposition. Just kidding 

 

[萌二次元少女]

No speaking Chinese anymore

 

[Reus]

黑影龙凤,

You have received a warning for spamming in regards to the message:
Re: Dev Blog 29/03/19.

他人还有这是 ? 不爆吧也

English administrator what is this?

You got a warning for speaking Chinese in an English board which is against the rules. If you have any questions, please message a moderator privately instead of spamming a thread. Run your posts through Google Translate if you are not able to speak English yourself.

Also, please don’t send multiple posts in a row. That also counts as spam.

 

[Gamekol]

Benide alsalar keşkeeeee ne de güzel denerdim oynu



I wish I didn't want to play the game

 

[Temchello]

I think there are a lot of people who is not chatting here, in taleworlds forum, but they have a lot of game experience and want to join the beta.