Had i known development was going to be this slow for the single-player experience, i wouldn't have bought Bannerlord.

[Talbrys]

+1. I'm tired of constantly seeing the same sentiment of "You just have rose-tinted nostalgia glasses; Warband was way worse!" expressed in different words. Even in vanilla, Warband had a functioning political layer: AI to AI relations, distinct lord personalities with unique dialogue scripts, differing relation changes based on the player's actions. Rulers would hold feasts and such to maintain relations with his vassals, and strings of defeats would see the relations between vassal to king rapidly souring. Marshal, Upstanding, and Good-Natured lords would all appreciate your character having more honor and releasing them post-battle.

In Bannerlord? None of this is apparent. Probably not even present. Your character traits have no effect on the world beyond modifying persuasion RNG checks. There's a severe disconnect between the player and AI/world at each step of the game. You could defeat a dishonorable lord and release him, who would hit you with the "Your cruelty is so refined that you'd rather see me free than in chains..." dialogue copy-pasted straight from Warband, yet you will still gain relation with his clan. In Warband, you'd lose relation the next time you meet them, befitting the dialogue, but in Bannerlord, that doesn't happen. You can defeat a female lord, and although your dialogue option is always a disparaging, "As you are not a warrior, I will let you go," you'll still gain relation with their clan.

Same old tired comparing EA to vanilla argument. When this game goes gold and it's still like this, then this argument is valid. Comparing EA to vanilla only shows you were expecting a finished product when you bought it.

"As you are not a warrior, I will let you go," isn't specific to women. There are women that I get the default message, and almost all mercenaries give "As you are not a warrior, I will let you go," regardless of gender. That might be a bug though.

 

[Telyon]

Why should I excuse a company for producing a game that's missing numerous features from its 10 years old prequel? Why are comparisons suddenly invalid if it's not to the EA of Warband? Did TW's vast company size, resources, and inspirations to draw from successful previous entries and mods suddenly disappear, only to resurface in the last few months?
I see this argument a lot, and I'm baffled that people bring this up as a fair counterpoint.

 

[Talbrys]

"Why does this game that isn't finished have all the things from the last game after it was finished."

You don't see what's wrong with that argument?

 

[Svang]

I'm shocked so many core Warband features aren't in the game after this amount of time. I hope to see all and more added very soon.

 

[Telyon]

"How does this game 8 years in production not have features that a rudimentary game in 2010 with 12 programmers had?" would be a more apt description.

 

[Sidhwen_Khorest]

I think a big part of the game that makes it lack character as compared to warband is them structuring it to have death (even though that doesn't seem to be part of the game yet). in warband you could have lots of personalized dialogue for companions and different lord types. they really just need to keep adding stuff into the simulation until there is enough content to make it feel like you aren't grinding the same thing over and over. Warband has the advantage of them having lots of time to add content where bannerlord is still waiting on a lot of that content.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

Let's just face reality: Bannerlord is a flop and a massive disappointment. It'll take probably two years at least for the modded game to become anywhere close to what we were hyped up for. And all these old "but it's EA!" excuses, doesn't mean much when you realize that probably 95% of EA games that go down this path that Bannerlord hath gone unto, turn into utter, permanent failure and disappointment. Not saying Bannerlord will permanently be that way, but that's how most of these project plans go.

I remember arguing about Stranded Deep being another EA failure in 2016, and their fanboys vehemently opposed my arguments with a lot of the same, garbage excuses, completely blind to reality. As of four years later presently, that game is still in "Early Access".

 

[e222143]

I enjoyed every hour of my playthrough and (luckily) never faced a bug. At some point, as happened in Warband too, ı get bored and stop playing until new features. I do not care when we get new content. I will play it when it comes. I am a "fan" of this game. Therefore, I will never be neutral, but ı can understand the opposite thoughts.
Furthermore, your thoughts heard by the developers (I can guarantee that), and it helps the game to be better. You may not be satisfied with the current status of the game. However, months later, you can get a better product. (Or not).
I do not agree with the game being a massive disappointment because, for me, I was OK. I wish the game were like you want it to be (that would be AWESOME), but I couldn't agree on being a "massive disappointment".
I wish you all a great time in Kalradia and on planet Earth.

 

[Apocal]

+1. I'm tired of constantly seeing the same sentiment of "You just have rose-tinted nostalgia glasses; Warband was way worse!" expressed in different words. Even in vanilla, Warband had a functioning political layer: AI to AI relations, distinct lord personalities with unique dialogue scripts, differing relation changes based on the player's actions.

What? Some of the lord personalities were fixed at game start while others were random, but none of them had unique dialogue. They all pulled from the personality templates.

 

[black_bulldog]

I'm not unhappy. I'm actually just interested in the law aspect of Early Access because I am a law student and I've studied false advertising law in the past. The law in this area is very unsettled, in the U.S., there is only general unfair competition (false advertising) law under the Lanham Act. There are no laws regulating Early Access and no cases that I've found that litigates this issue. That's why I'm discussing what the limits of EA should be here.

Is there a limit to what people can put in EA advertisements? We won't know for sure until someone litigates the issue or an actual law gets passed in the U.S.

What we can discuss right now is, what the law should or could be, so that consumers are properly protected.

I've seen some pretty shady things done in ea games. It's why I rarely play ea games, that being said I've had 1000's of hours with M&B in the past and I'm pretty sure I'll have a lot in the future. Sadly it's just going to take time because TW isn't setting the world on fire with the speed of development.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

I do not agree with the game being a massive disappointment because, for me, I was OK. I wish the game were like you want it to be (that would be AWESOME), but I couldn't agree on being a "massive disappointment".

Strictly objectively Bannerlord is an average or an above-average game, but by M&B standards and the standards of VC, It's a massive disappointment compared to the experience all of us were hoping for. It's not like this has never been done before.

 

[Telyon]

What? Some of the lord personalities were fixed at game start while others were random, but none of them had unique dialogue. They all pulled from the personality templates.

Unique dialogue scripts in the vein that each personality had a different template associated, not that each individual lord had unique dialogue. One could say that the lords in Bannerlord have the same distinction, as their dialogue is copy-pasted from Warband, but the lack of appropriate consequence tied to the dialogue leads to another disconnect.

 

[stevehoos]

Strictly objectively Bannerlord is an average or an above-average game, but by M&B standards and the standards of VC, It's a massive disappointment compared to the experience all of us were hoping for. It's not like this has never been done before.

This is the stance I have exactly.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

If you don't want an unfinished game, don't buy EA.

As simple as that.

 

[Cri11e]

.

I agree. What bothers me most are the devblogs who hyped us up before release, did anyone tell us they weren't implemented yet? I would have been much more cordial knowing that these were not added yet, instead I got ambushed with only bow in hand and 3 bandits wearing shield.

They really do need to release the modding tools soon, it will be a sad ****ing state if the game drops below 10k players this early.

Yep, thats my wish too. Hopefully they got some ace in their hand to drop soon and I think when the machine starts rolling its going to be insane.

 

[Apocal]

Unique dialogue scripts in the vein that each personality had a different template associated, not that each individual lord had unique dialogue. One could say that the lords in Bannerlord have the same distinction, as their dialogue is copy-pasted from Warband, but the lack of appropriate consequence tied to the dialogue leads to another disconnect.

Yeah, that feature didn't pull me in because it was abundantly clear their personality templates were in their dialogue choices and their relations changes and non-existent otherwise. A guy threatens to cut my throat just for speaking to him, then immediately after tells me his hidden plan to provoke a war with the Khergits? Uh... sure. My honorable friend gets tossed for treason and instantly raids my village... that's about the time I started digging through code, thinking it was a bug.

I did enjoy it being exploitable in the mid-game, when you could be friends with every single honorable lord in the realm, including the ones you'd never met before.

 

[svennd]

Strictly objectively Bannerlord is an average or an above-average game, but by M&B standards and the standards of VC, It's a massive disappointment compared to the experience all of us were hoping for. It's not like this has never been done before.

You forget to mark "in its current state"; We have no idea how potent the engine is, towards future expansion. In a world of micro transactions, multiplayer first, ... bannerlord is the exception having a serious sandbox single player.

Perhaps for some of you, the fact that you can sit on a warhorse with a shield & sword has lost its merit, but I have to say, the feeling of racing before my archer line cheering isn't losing its fun.

These unproductive topics while fun to argue, should be locked up imho; let's focus on what can be done better, and try to start the modding community.

 

[Pickingupmyteeth]

These unproductive topics while fun to argue, should be locked up imho; let's focus on what can be done better, and try to start the modding community.

I've reposted only twice in this thread, (3 times with this), and hadn't previously made any post since May. I paid £80 for two copies. I'm not sure why you think someone like myself should not be able to say their opinion, if it didn't ring true with others then this thread would have sunk like a stone on its own.

Regarding Mods, and those who have mentioned here how i shouldn't worry as they will 'save everything'.i honestly could not care less about mods and have no plans to use them, as they rarely if ever offer anything i want. I'm focused on bannerlord itself.

 

[Heyyou]

Strictly objectively Bannerlord is an average or an above-average game, but by M&B standards and the standards of VC, It's a massive disappointment compared to the experience all of us were hoping for. It's not like this has never been done before.

The thing is that the average game is **** and no one without some kind of attachment to the game would chose to play it(unless they are dead bored). So being above average isn't great.

 

[Svang]

There isn't much more for them to develop. They've admitted they are not adding any of the Warband features that are currently missing.

For the rest of the EA they will be focusing on the storyline and quests, balancing and bug fixing. They technically never lied to us, but they used our expectations against us as a means of getting out of this development hell. They were desperate, can't really blame them.

If the modding toolset is superb I may change my opinion, but for now my reviews on various sites will remain negative.