Regarding early access, just think back about all the news we had regarding the development of the game.
I'm guessing the game is about 80% finished and for the remaining 20%, TaleWorlds will use the Early Access phase to finish it with players' feedback.
See.. if that was the case, why not release it now? or at the earliest convenience at least.
Looks like they need 7 months to get it to a point where they even can release it in early access, and that's a bad prospect no matter how you look at it.
If they just said, "we'll be releasing the full game in march!!" I'd have no problems with it(even if said release came with the expected amount of bugs and whatnot), the early access part is what gets all sorts of red flags going for me...
I think at this point we’re due for an explanation from TW on what exactly went wrong during development. It shouldn’t have taken nearly 10 years to get a sequel just into Early Access (maybe call it Late Access at this point!). There has to be a reason why it’s taken so long and now all we have is EA in 6-7 months. What went wrong? Can we have some transparency?
1. In around 2014 they switched rendering systems (many games did at the time) and had to ditch most of their assets.
2. In around 2016 they seem to have switched focus from a history inspired game to a more fantastical "history influenced" game. Mechanics like cleaving and blocking arrows with swords appeared at this time. Many of the models also seem to have changed: the sturgians became generic vikings, the battanians went from psuedo-celts to generic hollywood barbarians, and the calradian empire went from clearly roman inspired to something a bit less grounded.
3. The glassdoor employee reviews seem to suggest very poor management and time allocation.
These switches of focus happen in most games, hell it's happened in my game and I'm just one guy, but in bannerlord it seems to have resulted in huge loss of man-hours and progress. I'm genuinely interested by this since there doesn't seem to be anything exceptionally bad about the development on the surface, but it's resulted in a way longer development than you would expect from 100+ people.
Luckily for me, my country is at the beginning of an economic crisis and I will have time until everything settles down. So maybe by that time the game will be complete.
I am curious to see what's new since last year. The trailer shows nothing and although the graphics look great, I am not so sure about the mechanics and the animations.
I'm just happy they set themselves a time limit. All that "It'll be ready when it's ready" bull**** was so annoying.
Plus, we know the game development was ****ed but don't expect any details out of TW. No one wants their dirty laundry out in public and that's understandable.
Development is hard and if not done properly, it can turn into a bloody mess. Bannerlord is a HUGE and complex system, so it's tottally understandable that a "rookie" company has it's troubles developing such a great project. I'm just happy that we finally have some date to look foward to and glad to know that there are REALLY just some finishing touches left... I have some games in E.A., so I'm tottally aware of the risks (bugs, wipes, resets etc) and I'm willing to take them. Anyway, can't wait to lay my hands on it!
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
Exactly this. No one I know that is a M&B fan expected a full release. All of us expected an EA of some description. Lest people forget, TaleWorld's actually set the bar on how to do EA right. Very few games go into EA in such an organised way as TaleWorld's has.
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
As someone who has religiously followed development of games in early access and general, I think it's perfectly normal for a game like Bannerlord to have taken so much time, considering that their development team is formed out of what, not even 100 people? Game development takes a lot of time, and if things can go wrong, they do, especially if you take into account the fact that they also have employees leaving and joining, which means training new ones and so on. They probably don't even have a large QA team to do their testing, since they have to call closed betas and so on. The fact that they're in beta, however, is worth more than the fact that they will be in early access. Beta usually means that features were designed and implemented, and now it's simply a matter of balancing and ironing out things, or finishing up on the features.
Early access is probably TaleWorlds' way of saying, "Hey, we're going to release Bannerlord but we need heavy testing here. Testing we can't get done with our 5-man QA team."
Some things you cannot test with your development team, you just need a lot of people to do so. Imagine all of the things that can go wrong in such a complex game, or features not working properly. As far as we're aware, someone may discover that the game just stops functioning or functions abnormally after 200 days in Single Player, and that's a very game-breaking bug for a full release game.
Besides, it's the norm nowadays. Most games use their playerbase to test out the game (implementing certain "out of the ordinary" features or just balancing reasons). Gaming development has become a feedback and testing haven.
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
As someone who has religiously followed development of games in early access and general, I think it's perfectly normal for a game like Bannerlord to have taken so much time, considering that their development team is formed out of what, not even 100 people? Game development takes a lot of time, and if things can go wrong, they do, especially if you take into account the fact that they also have employees leaving and joining, which means training new ones and so on. They probably don't even have a large QA team to do their testing, since they have to call closed betas and so on. The fact that they're in beta, however, is worth more than the fact that they will be in early access. Beta usually means that features were designed and implemented, and now it's simply a matter of balancing and ironing out things, or finishing up on the features.
Early access is probably TaleWorlds' way of saying, "Hey, we're going to release Bannerlord but we need heavy testing here. Testing we can't get done with our 5-man QA team."
Some things you cannot test with your development team, you just need a lot of people to do so. Imagine all of the things that can go wrong in such a complex game, or features not working properly. As far as we're aware, someone may discover that the game just stops functioning or functions abnormally after 200 days in Single Player, and that's a very game-breaking bug for a full release game.
Besides, it's the norm nowadays. Most games use their playerbase to test out the game (implementing certain "out of the ordinary" features or just balancing reasons). Gaming development has become a feedback and testing haven.
I think it's easy to forget that Bannerlord is not The Witcher 3, or Cyberpunk 2077, or any other game that strives to completely reinvent its predecessors. Please note, I'm not comparing the quality of these games to this one, it's just an example of games that don't just take what they have and build upon it, but go in completely new directions.
I know we're all fans here (I've been waiting since long before it was even officially announced -- I was the guy who posted that super early, crappy video that showed about 3 seconds of "gameplay"!), but to me, it looks like a much more polished Warband, with some neat new features added on. Forgive me if I think a 100-man development team should be able to pull off a project like that without the aid of Early Access.
That said, if they are truly using EA as a way to get feedback and polish an already-mostly-complete game, as well as fix bugs or add a few requested features, I'm on board.
Horik6697 说:
Polycount 说:
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
Yes, they did. Granted, that was mostly on the Steam discussions (which is certainly a hive of toxicity, though it has some positive elements as well). I haven't hung around here since the early blog posts (prior to them arriving on Steam as well).
Anyway, a beta version is one thing, but Early Access is another, in my mind.
Regarding early access, just think back about all the news we had regarding the development of the game.
I'm guessing the game is about 80% finished and for the remaining 20%, TaleWorlds will use the Early Access phase to finish it with players' feedback.
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
As someone who has religiously followed development of games in early access and general, I think it's perfectly normal for a game like Bannerlord to have taken so much time, considering that their development team is formed out of what, not even 100 people? Game development takes a lot of time, and if things can go wrong, they do, especially if you take into account the fact that they also have employees leaving and joining, which means training new ones and so on. They probably don't even have a large QA team to do their testing, since they have to call closed betas and so on. The fact that they're in beta, however, is worth more than the fact that they will be in early access. Beta usually means that features were designed and implemented, and now it's simply a matter of balancing and ironing out things, or finishing up on the features.
Early access is probably TaleWorlds' way of saying, "Hey, we're going to release Bannerlord but we need heavy testing here. Testing we can't get done with our 5-man QA team."
Some things you cannot test with your development team, you just need a lot of people to do so. Imagine all of the things that can go wrong in such a complex game, or features not working properly. As far as we're aware, someone may discover that the game just stops functioning or functions abnormally after 200 days in Single Player, and that's a very game-breaking bug for a full release game.
Besides, it's the norm nowadays. Most games use their playerbase to test out the game (implementing certain "out of the ordinary" features or just balancing reasons). Gaming development has become a feedback and testing haven.
I think it's easy to forget that Bannerlord is not The Witcher 3, or Cyberpunk 2077, or any other game that strives to completely reinvent its predecessors. Please note, I'm not comparing the quality of these games to this one, it's just an example of games that don't just take what they have and build upon it, but go in completely new directions.
I know we're all fans here (I've been waiting since long before it was even officially announced -- I was the guy who posted that super early, crappy video that showed about 3 seconds of "gameplay"!), but to me, it looks like a much more polished Warband, with some neat new features added on. Forgive me if I think a 100-man development team should be able to pull off a project like that without the aid of Early Access.
That said, if they are truly using EA as a way to get feedback and polish an already-mostly-complete game, as well as fix bugs or add a few requested features, I'm on board.
Horik6697 说:
Polycount 说:
I'm deeply concerned. Years ago, I mentioned my fears that the game would release into Early Access, and I was told I was crazy. It does not feel good to be vindicated.
As others have pointed out, the game has been in development for many, many, many years. Whether it's due to funding issues, a management ****-up, perfectionism, or something else, they have time and time again missed planned release dates and windows. And, over the past year, we've repeatedly been told that the game is nearing completion and just needs the "finishing touches." If that's the case, why the bloody hell is it going to Early Access -- in 6 months, no less?
I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they will now have an excuse, and the funding, to continue to develop the game for several more years. I'm concerned that I'll quickly grow tired of a steady trickle of updates as opposed to a finished product, thus dampening my enthusiasm for the full game's release (as has always happened with EA games for me). I admit that this particular point is my own fault, but I'm self-aware enough to realize it, and as such desperately hoped they wouldn't go this route.
I'm concerned that this now means we won't actually get a full release date for god knows how long.
Concerned. Frustrated. Disappointed. This is not good news to me at all, but the confirmation of my wildest worries.
With all of that said, I'm 100% open to being wrong. Perhaps TaleWorld's idea of EA is just an unpolished version of the full or near-full game, with all features complete and mechanics in place. But I won't get my hopes up when they say stuff like "the game is in a rudimentary state" (after 10 years of development!!).
Yes, they did. Granted, that was mostly on the Steam discussions (which is certainly a hive of toxicity, though it has some positive elements as well). I haven't hung around here since the early blog posts (prior to them arriving on Steam as well).
Anyway, a beta version is one thing, but Early Access is another, in my mind.
You're right, it is a polished Warband. The only exception is that they completely changed the language the game is programmed in, from my understanding. That means they had to remake literally everything, from the game engine to features and models and textures and so on. They made a completely new game in 8 years, with a 100 man team, that's pretty good.
If they had kept the Warband engine and just worked from that with renewed everything and just thrown in a new Shader, I would have agreed, 8 years would have been much.
Of course, I don't deny Early Access may be a way to get some funds running too, they are a game COMPANY at the end of the day, but it's mostly testing, I assume.
Just to jump in, sorry to burst the bubble or put a bit of a downer on it, but I think Tolga is a bit off the mark here. But it does make me happy that with his work in QA he feels that the game is a lot closer to release than is actually true. We are launching in Early Access in March 2020 and we aren't making any false assumptions or promises about that. The game will not be feature complete at that time and there will still be a long road to go after that where we work alongside our community to bring the game to the level that we all hope it will be at.
No one who has been following this game should be surprised about EA. They literally told us last year this was the route they'd be taking with Bannerlord. Personally, I'd rather they do EA then a full release because it allows the players to have some ability to shape the final product of the game. If there are some mechanics that the majority of the community dislike or feel is under-developed, it's more likely Taleworlds will be willing to change those in EA than after a full release.
It's hard to tell exactly how far the game is along just from the blogs and videos, but it seems to me that they have something currently that is at least playable, so I'm not worried that come March we will need to wait months longer just to get a game that feels like a mount & blade game.
