I gotta say it...

[Lucinious]

I've just made an account for this, but I have been playing M&B games since the first one and every one since (yes even with fire and sword...lol). So before I say what I'm going to say....I have ALWAYS been a supporter of TW and always will so I am being unbiased.

That said though, it does need to be addressed....I have seen a lot of back and forth from supporters and new players alike, with the main arguments always being that it's "Early Access" and the game is going to be busted and incomplete. I understand both sides of the argument and have points of my own on both sides.

I absolutely do have to call out the people who constantly shut down those that are irritated with the way the game is not even in a playable state right now, after money was charged and TW obviously feeding off everyone's excitement to play a game that they have waited 8 years for. If you slapped an "Alpha testing" or "Beta Testing" title on it then sure there's no possible way to be upset....but people were charged 40+ dollars for a game that has crippling crashes and other issues that make a WHOLE section of the game (singleplayer obv) not playable. Now what I mean by this isn't that it's missing features or mechanics aren't working. It is more than understandable that it is EA and the features aren't there or aren't working right, it's even directly stated on the page. HOWEVER.....I do not think it is unreasonable for people to be irritated that a core, *fundamental* aspect such as saving the game could be overlooked on a development of 8 years. I don't know anything of the saving format but It does seem odd that in 8 years, of which I imagine the saving feature was worked out early on, corrupted saves are occurring. The corruption isn't even happening because of different modules or patches, which would be understandable because mismatches cause problems in ALL games. The problem is literally in the saving mechanic itself....where PLAYERS have had to find the cause of it themselves. The fact that players have found that at *exactly* 45 saves (Now 46 cause the lastest "patch" that did nothing but extend the save by 1...that took a whole day to push out) is in itself very sad. Now please read that I am saying it's an early access game, and many people like myself knew that coming into this. I just can't understand why people who are so ignorantly biased to TW (read above I too support them in most if not all aspects) that they are blinded to this very real, understandable issue players are having with 8 years of development. We have all waited so long for the game and TW has done everyone an extreme solid by releasing it as EA so to TW I do absolutely appreciate what you are doing and what you have done! Please don't take it as anything other than a longtime fan who is just a tad dissapointed. The whole argument of "Don't buy it in EA, wait till it's finished" is the equivalent of rubbing a raw steak into a starving dogs face and saying "don't eat it till later" lol it just simply doesn't work that way ?

My last question to everyone is this:
At what point do we, the players, get to FAIRLY say that this isn't even Early Access right now? Cause to me as things stand, it's a Beta Test that we had to PAY to get in to.

Again all of this is with nothing but love and adoration of a series of games made by an awesome Dev studio. ❤

 

[ShaneRoach]

Welcome to the wonderful world of economics and regulation.

There is no such thing as a definable "acceptable" point where you can or can't be upset about something. For many, many centuries, people who took pride in their work offered something they used to call a "refund". That way, people who were happy with your work would pass it on by word of mouth, and people unhappy with your work would at least admit you were fair and honest.

3 hours is nowhere near enough time to make a decision about something that may well be borked 20 or 40 or 100 hours in.

Software licensing needs reworked. Most games these days are more subscriptions than they are a final product. That's because over time the community wants upgrades, and that requires constant work to fulfill. So folk ought to be able to try them out for a month or two and stop, and the folks who play and play ought to bear the brunt of the expense. This is the result of years of software regulation slowly but surely turning the service back into a service after the industry originally thought it wanted to be under an intellectual property regime so they could sell a final product as an commodity.

Long story short, there is no answer to that question. It is entirely subjective. Bummer, I know, but that is the state of the industry. Every SINGLE game goes through this now because the industry is such that there is no rational way to deal with someone who would under normal circumstances in any other industry simply be given a refund.

I'm happy to report I am not having many of these issues. So far so good for me.

 

[Kangamangus]

I'm just not sure if I've loaded/saved enough times to have the issue, but is it something that is guaranteed to happen? I might put off playing until that is fixed. Granted, it might be harder for them to get reports if players start doing that. :/

 

[Pluvius]

Individual experiences may vary. I have been binging since launch and have only had one crash. This seems above "par for the course" with early access titles. Now, I dont know about the multiplayer aspect, not really my thing, that may be all buggy and ate up. I am enjoying the game so far, content with the $40 I dropped on it.

 

[bestguy]

It’s reasonable to expect that in their internal testing they didn’t save a game 45 times to come across the corruption issue, and there is no reason to cry over an issue they’re already aware of and highly likely to fix within a week.

 

[CoolYo]

Why do people keep saying it was in development for 8 year when it wasn't? they spent a lot of time rebuilding their engine and probably spent 3-4 years on development getting really tired of misinformation.

 

[kinmersha]

As long as TW keeps up with frequent patches and starts actually rolling out the missing features/telling us what they're doing, I'll continue to be happy. I personally have had only one crash, and the fact that they're fixing a lot of bugs is a good sign that things are going well.

 

[Daggo]

Some of us can barely play the game at all, like myself. But frankly, they're rolling out a patch a day, trying their best to fix the myriad of issues the game has. And like My.Simple said, the game had to be rebuilt at least once on an entirely new engine.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

This argument always pops up with EA games...

Look, there's a big warning on the purchase page about the game being EA meaning that it's unfinished, unpolished, buggy, etc. Everyone should know by now that you're taking a risk purchasing something that's unfinished. So you read the warning, weighed the value of the game to your interest in playing it in it's current form and then went ahead with the purchase.

Take some responsibility with your purchases. Steam even gives you a chance to refund before 2hrs of gameplay.

Personally I can't continue my campaign due to a save bloat issue and will most likely lose all that play time, thems the breaks.

 

[Len12]

early access is the new move. why release a game when its finished when you can just release it as "beta" and release content to keep new players coming. also you can just say "hey guys, early access" when people point at bugs. good for the developer, bad for the gamers since too many companies join this path.

 

[Cadeology]

Listen everyone understands that this is an EA game however that being said there are still expectations that every gamer should have with the developers. There are several critical problems with this game that effect its playability. I appreciate the fact that TaleWorlds was able to release the game for us however fundamental things such as saving, preventing excessive crashes, implementation of better cosmetics, broken economy, etc. These are core aspects of the game that should have been ironed out in the eight years that this game was in development. I love TaleWorlds.. I really do but its ok to let them know negative parts of the game that we don't enjoy so that they can iron out issues and develop the game into something we really want.

 

[almightycricket]

I've just made an account for this, but I have been playing M&B games since the first one and every one since (yes even with fire and sword...lol). So before I say what I'm going to say....I have ALWAYS been a supporter of TW and always will so I am being unbiased.

That said though, it does need to be addressed....I have seen a lot of back and forth from supporters and new players alike, with the main arguments always being that it's "Early Access" and the game is going to be busted and incomplete. I understand both sides of the argument and have points of my own on both sides.

I absolutely do have to call out the people who constantly shut down those that are irritated with the way the game is not even in a playable state right now, after money was charged and TW obviously feeding off everyone's excitement to play a game that they have waited 8 years for. If you slapped an "Alpha testing" or "Beta Testing" title on it then sure there's no possible way to be upset....but people were charged 40+ dollars for a game that has crippling crashes and other issues that make a WHOLE section of the game (singleplayer obv) not playable. Now what I mean by this isn't that it's missing features or mechanics aren't working. It is more than understandable that it is EA and the features aren't there or aren't working right, it's even directly stated on the page. HOWEVER.....I do not think it is unreasonable for people to be irritated that a core, *fundamental* aspect such as saving the game could be overlooked on a development of 8 years. I don't know anything of the saving format but It does seem odd that in 8 years, of which I imagine the saving feature was worked out early on, corrupted saves are occurring. The corruption isn't even happening because of different modules or patches, which would be understandable because mismatches cause problems in ALL games. The problem is literally in the saving mechanic itself....where PLAYERS have had to find the cause of it themselves. The fact that players have found that at *exactly* 45 saves (Now 46 cause the lastest "patch" that did nothing but extend the save by 1...that took a whole day to push out) is in itself very sad. Now please read that I am saying it's an early access game, and many people like myself knew that coming into this. I just can't understand why people who are so ignorantly biased to TW (read above I too support them in most if not all aspects) that they are blinded to this very real, understandable issue players are having with 8 years of development. We have all waited so long for the game and TW has done everyone an extreme solid by releasing it as EA so to TW I do absolutely appreciate what you are doing and what you have done! Please don't take it as anything other than a longtime fan who is just a tad dissapointed. The whole argument of "Don't buy it in EA, wait till it's finished" is the equivalent of rubbing a raw steak into a starving dogs face and saying "don't eat it till later" lol it just simply doesn't work that way ?

My last question to everyone is this:
At what point do we, the players, get to FAIRLY say that this isn't even Early Access right now? Cause to me as things stand, it's a Beta Test that we had to PAY to get in to.

Again all of this is with nothing but love and adoration of a series of games made by an awesome Dev studio. ❤

I don't know why this has to be explained multiple times, they didn't work on it for 8 years. They tested the old engine, realized it wasn't up to snuff (see viking conquest) they then built a new engine from scratch (more than once) and the only real development has been about 3 years-ish. On top of that most studios who make games (AAA) have 2000+ employees and they take 3-5 years to make a game WITH an engine already built. Tales has about 70ish employees and that number includes people not actively developing the game.

A lot of the push back to the complaints is one, nobody does their research and just makes blanket statements like "This game have been in development for 8 years, ****ty developers" or they are not in a location to be seen (see suggestions/feedback or the bug reporting threads. Next it's usually somebody saying games **** with no constructive feedback, trolling or looking for conflict.

The vast majority of us agree, things need to be fixed. Please do report your issues, hell, look for other people with the same issue who have possibly already posted to make it more obvious.

Lastly in response to your last question, you don't. They warned it would be buggy. Buggy doesn't just mean mechanics, it means not optimized, possibly not working. You don't have to play, you didn't have to pay. You love the series, be constructive and help or wait.

 

[Aelfric190]

I really don't understand what everyone's issue is. It is Early Access. That is the equivalent of essentially being in Alpha, or Beta. The game is completely playable. I've already got 40 hours in it. Only one crash so far, and the thing it crashed for was fixed in yesterdays patch. There is so much mis information going on in this game. Single player is 100% playable except for a few outraged people's machines. People aren't even bothering to troubleshoot themselves. Sometimes you just need to take a drastic step and reinstall windows as something could be corrupted with a particular windows update that won't let the game work. Etc etc.

Sometimes your computer just sucks. Most of the issue is, ITS EARLY ACCESS. Big ol' warning sign right in the front. Don't want to deal with bugs and issues? Then don't buy it. Point, blank, period. Take some personal responsibility for yourself and your actions. Don't blame it on devs who are doing there utmost to provide an awesome experience for us. Especially a small ass dev team who have developed one of the most unique genre types in the business. There is NO GAME like Mount and Blade. Period.

 

[DannyT]

I've always been a taleworlds fan boy. Loved the game when I was beta testing it. Really looked forward to the sp campaign.
Hate to say it but I can't tell what TW have spent 8 years doing. Plays like it's been thrown together by a rag tag group of modders that don't really care and don't communicate with each other. Very disappointed.
Truly hope it gets better.

 

[gasznak]

I gotta say I'm slowly losing hope.

Game still doesn't work for me and other people who have the startup crash issue.
It is early access and I'm ready to test bugs and glitches, but I didn't expect the game not to work at all.

 

[Lucinious]

I'm just not sure if I've loaded/saved enough times to have the issue, but is it something that is guaranteed to happen? I might put off playing until that is fixed. Granted, it might be harder for them to get reports if players start doing that. :/

It's 100% to happen. Been tested multiple times, and confirmed.

Individual experiences may vary. I have been binging since launch and have only had one crash. This seems above "par for the course" with early access titles. Now, I dont know about the multiplayer aspect, not really my thing, that may be all buggy and ate up. I am enjoying the game so far, content with the $40 I dropped on it.

I agree, some have had more problems then others. But I can promise you, you will experience the same problem as everyone else if you save/load enough. You just haven't done it yet. I still believe the game is worth the money, was never in question

It’s reasonable to expect that in their internal testing they didn’t save a game 45 times to come across the corruption issue, and there is no reason to cry over an issue they’re already aware of and highly likely to fix within a week.

If the dev team didn't save/load the game atleast 45 times, they clearly didn't beta test their single player, so that only proves my point. They are "already aware" and have pushed out multiple patches, each one doing null to fix the issue.

Why do people keep saying it was in development for 8 year when it wasn't? they spent a lot of time rebuilding their engine and probably spent 3-4 years on development getting really tired of misinformation.

You can be tired of all the misinformation you want, but since the date they announced working on it to EA release, it was around 8 years. If you're building a house and you start in 2010 and in 2015 the house falls apart and you have to rebuild it and it doesn't finish till 2020....you still took 10 years to build it

This argument always pops up with EA games...

Look, there's a big warning on the purchase page about the game being EA meaning that it's unfinished, unpolished, buggy, etc. Everyone should know by now that you're taking a risk purchasing something that's unfinished. So you read the warning, weighed the value of the game to your interest in playing it in it's current form and then went ahead with the purchase.

Take some responsibility with your purchases. Steam even gives you a chance to refund before 2hrs of gameplay.

Personally I can't continue my campaign due to a save bloat issue and will most likely lose all that play time, thems the breaks.

The game breaking problems don't occur until people are already well past the 2 hours, so the refund this just ain't possible, but I do see your point and addressed how I felt about it in the main post. I appreciate your honest input though!

I don't know why this has to be explained multiple times, they didn't work on it for 8 years. They tested the old engine, realized it wasn't up to snuff (see viking conquest) they then built a new engine from scratch (more than once) and the only real development has been about 3 years-ish. On top of that most studios who make games (AAA) have 2000+ employees and they take 3-5 years to make a game WITH an engine already built. Tales has about 70ish employees and that number includes people not actively developing the game.

Lastly in response to your last question, you don't. They warned it would be buggy. Buggy doesn't just mean mechanics, it means not optimized, possibly not working. You don't have to play, you didn't have to pay. You love the series, be constructive and help or wait.

If you start a project, and ACTIVELY continue it but have to scrap and rebuild you're still working on the same project. They did work that long on it, it just had to be scrapped and redone. That time just doesn't go nowhere, it does still count toward their development time. So....tbh it's not wrong to say 8 years lol.

Directly from their EA info post

And while there is definitely plenty of content for players to dive into and enjoy, we must be clear in reminding you that this is an Early Access release. There may be bugs and glitches, there will certainly be balancing issues, some features may be missing or currently disabled, and certain aspects of the game might not receive full-support until later down the line. You can expect to see reused scenes (our eventual aim is that each town and castle will have its own unique scene) as well as other types of placeholder content, such as voice lines, animations, quests, etc.

I'm sorry but I just don't see the system of saving progress on the game to be a bug or glitch. It would just be easier for them to come outright and say they messed up and overlooked how their save function is working internally or something along the lines. Then it'd be hard to harbor any disappointment on that aspect.

 

[gasznak]

The game breaking problems don't occur until people are already well past the 2 hours, so the refund this just ain't possible, but I do see your point and addressed how I felt about it in the main post. I appreciate your honest input though!

That's not true. If the game doesn't work at all Steam will refund it even if you have more than 2 hours played.
I haven't been able to see the main menu and I have 5 hours played already - the game counts all the loading, crashes and time spent in the launcher as time spent playing. Talked with Steam support about it and you can still refund.

I'm still not sure if I wanna do it, as I haven't refunded any games ever. Would suck to do it for M&B, cause I really liked previous games. But if the devs won't let me play it I might have to.

 

[Lucinious]

That's not true. If the game doesn't work at all Steam will refund it even if you have more than 2 hours played.
I haven't been able to see the main menu and I have 5 hours played already - the game counts all the loading, crashes and time spent in the launcher as time spent playing. Talked with Steam about it and you can still refund.

Well I stand corrected then, thank you! I have no intention of taking money from TW, they have earned it through their past projects but it is good for people to know should they choose to go that path!

 

[almightycricket]

It's 100% to happen. Been tested multiple times, and confirmed.



I agree, some have had more problems then others. But I can promise you, you will experience the same problem as everyone else if you save/load enough. You just haven't done it yet. I still believe the game is worth the money, was never in question


If the dev team didn't save/load the game atleast 45 times, they clearly didn't beta test their single player, so that only proves my point. They are "already aware" and have pushed out multiple patches, each one doing null to fix the issue.


You can be tired of all the misinformation you want, but since the date they announced working on it to EA release, it was around 8 years. If you're building a house and you start in 2010 and in 2015 the house falls apart and you have to rebuild it and it doesn't finish till 2020....you still took 10 years to build it


The game breaking problems don't occur until people are already well past the 2 hours, so the refund this just ain't possible, but I do see your point and addressed how I felt about it in the main post. I appreciate your honest input though!


If you start a project, and ACTIVELY continue it but have to scrap and rebuild you're still working on the same project. They did work that long on it, it just had to be scrapped and redone. That time just doesn't go nowhere, it does still count toward their development time. So....tbh it's not wrong to say 8 years lol.

You are using semantics and arguing definitions. Yes they were working on development for 8 years, no ****. Using your analogy, somebody tried remodeling an old house, realized it was past repairs, demolished it, figured out the foundation and blueprints for the new house, built it so that by definition it could be called a house, but they still needed to get the electricity tested, plumbing working, insure the outside was weather proofed and insulated BUT had one room where they said if you're willing to deal with all the above you could move in while construction was still on going. You said sure, as a consumer, and now feel surprised?

 

[JustinTime49]

I don't know why this has to be explained multiple times, they didn't work on it for 8 years. They tested the old engine, realized it wasn't up to snuff (see viking conquest) they then built a new engine from scratch (more than once) and the only real development has been about 3 years-ish. On top of that most studios who make games (AAA) have 2000+ employees and they take 3-5 years to make a game WITH an engine already built. Tales has about 70ish employees and that number includes people not actively developing the game.

A lot of the push back to the complaints is one, nobody does their research and just makes blanket statements like "This game have been in development for 8 years, ****ty developers" or they are not in a location to be seen (see suggestions/feedback or the bug reporting threads. Next it's usually somebody saying games **** with no constructive feedback, trolling or looking for conflict.

The vast majority of us agree, things need to be fixed. Please do report your issues, hell, look for other people with the same issue who have possibly already posted to make it more obvious.

Lastly in response to your last question, you don't. They warned it would be buggy. Buggy doesn't just mean mechanics, it means not optimized, possibly not working. You don't have to play, you didn't have to pay. You love the series, be constructive and help or wait.

If you have followed the development of Bannerlord, you would understand your mistake.

In 2016, they announced they wanted to give access to the players in some shape or form. Them delaying that was fine, but to be confident enough to announce that you believe the core mechanics were good enough in 2016 should mean that they were finished or in stable condition by then right?

Four years later and we are met with an enjoyable, but very very broken game. Yes they built their engine from the ground up, but something you need to realize is they built the engine with Bannerlord in mind. Many games, such as EA games falter from being forced to use Frosbite engine, which increases development time for those games.

The game has been in development for more than 3 years, please don't make false statements like that. We got b-roll clips of the game back in 2014, WITH the new engine. It's just the engine has been improving along with the development of Bannerlord, so please check your research as well.

I agree with everything else though.