If not now, when?

[BulletTrain]

I share RichardAytemur and everyone else's frustration but I think everyone should reserve judgement (or changing their review) until TW has released an official main version.

Now before you go at me, this is not a general call to "calm down", I say this because you are right about certain old and new elements being missing. But TW has explicitly or sometimes implicitly said that they are planning on putting some of those elements in the game but since the game is still not technically finished putting those elements would be doing work that would need to be redone from scratch when something fundamental in the game design changes.

Let's wait until they have put the final version out then I will 100% get behind this move to reevaluate our opinion of the game.

 

[WhyAmIHere]

Thats where I'm different. I review games based on: was the time I spent playing this game worth my money? If yes, my review is positive. I dont care if 1000 hours later i decide i no longer like it. My review stays positive.

That works fine for a game that isn't under consistent development. It doesn't work for an EA game that undergoes constant change. You're reviewing a game in its current state. If you enjoyed version 0.3 of a game for 200 hours and version 0.4 for 300 hours, but then you don't enjoy 0.5 and 0.6, then you don't enjoy the game in its current state, and a negative review makes more sense. If you want to include something about how you enjoyed earlier versions and how they were great in order to add some nuance to your review that's fine, but the logic here doesn't line up with the consistent development cycles and changes in EA game development.

I share RichardAytemur and everyone else's frustration but I think everyone should reserve judgement (or changing their review) until TW has released an official main version.

Now before you go at me, this is not a general call to "calm down", I say this because you are right about certain old and new elements being missing. But TW has explicitly or sometimes implicitly said that they are planning on putting some of those elements in the game but since the game is still not technically finished putting those elements would be doing work that would need to be redone from scratch when something fundamental in the game design changes.

Let's wait until they have put the final version out then I will 100% get behind this move to reevaluate our opinion of the game.

I suppose we'll get a better idea of what to expect if/when they do release that updated roadmap post they promised a few weeks ago, but until then, what we have to go on is this post. There isn't much about missing old elements being added in there, unfortunately. The majority of that list is "improvements to <thing that exists in game already>"

There are a lot more people playing for a few hours and posting "awesome". At least this guy knows what he's talking about.

Don't forget the people giving it positive reviews saying "It's meh now but I trust TW!" or "It's got great potential! Just wait till it's out of EA!"

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Meanwhile, we're experiencing this when I checked the store page of Bannerlord on Steam %87 of 126k people voted in total and it says "very positive". And %82 of 2k people voted last 30 days and it says "very positive" as well.

First I like bannerlord, I think it's good, but it needs a lot of works still
Now, we have an emergent problem with people being reluctant to criticize or publicly reject ANYTHING when it's not completely anonymous.
People won't even taint their make believe internet accounts by criticizing anything UNLESS it's also virtue signaling.
Inversely, people are all too happy to respond negatively when it's anonymous: Think of down votes, dozens will downvote out of impulse, but hardly anyone will actually post an argument for fear of being downvoted or ridiculed themselves.

So it's no surprise you get mostly 7/10 ratings (or I think steam is just positive or negative?) with very few very critical or overtly praising stuff.

 

[KingEroc1st]

thing about this game is it takes like 100+ hours to get to the kingdom stage. and because it's early access with constant automatic steam updates. my saved files keep getting destroyed. so i have to start over. main reason i barely touched the game in the last 8 months. i just don't want to do the same **** again and again

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

We had a thread pop up trying to brigade people into review-bombing on Steam already. Know that this is against the forum's rules as well as Steam's terms of service. Saying "oh but I'm not really telling you to do this " doesn't absolve you.

 

[RichardtheCat]

I see your pov and respect it. I was gonna ask the community if we can change these reviews do you think it will help us to send TW a serious signal about rethinking/changing their communication strategy. Or if I didn't write anything and share what I've done to make a difference then people started to ask/accuse me do you want us to do the same? etc... So, that wasn't like "I'm not saying but you know what to do". The reason why I wrote that was not to cover myself as well. I was trying to keep the future discussion on the focus to we need to do something to make a change. But as you can see even I wrote a note about my game playtime, the focus of the discussion moves away. Sadly that what happens most of the time in forums. Some people prefer directly attack, rather than try to understand what that person trying to say.

 

[Horatius]

Lmao, this is why you buy a product for its current state not for what might come. Changing your review because "what might come" sucks suddenly is just stupid.

 

[Count Delinard]

Temporarily locked and under review.

 

[IceNoVa]

It's perfectly okay to express discontent and debate what we feel is right or wrong about the development process, suggest ideas and provide feedback and criticism alike.
I've removed the the problematic bit from OP, which was borderline brigading and as such violating forum rules. However, the discussion that emerged was constructive and well-mannered, hence there's no need to keep the thread locked.

 

[RichardtheCat]

Temporarily locked and under review.

It's perfectly okay to express discontent and debate what we feel is right or wrong about the development process, suggest ideas and provide feedback and criticism alike.
I've removed the the problematic bit from OP, which was borderline brigading and as such violating forum rules. However, the discussion that emerged was constructive and well-mannered, hence there's no need to keep the thread locked.

Your decision and action about removing problematic part for you is fair enough and thank you for your understanding. As I said a couple of times in this post, the reason I wrote this post to find a way to change TW habit about the roadmap, communication etc...I'm not sure about the action I took worked or not. I guess we'll find out with the next move of TW. Fingers crossed.

 

[KingEroc1st]

the fact that the development process seemed to have slowed down after receiving a huge influx of cash from the EA launch, leads me to think to them this is more of a cash grab than a passion project. and frankly i have no time or patiences to tolerate this kind of behavior.

 

[Mad Vader]

the fact that the development process seemed to have slowed down after receiving a huge influx of cash from the EA launch, leads me to think to them this is more of a cash grab than a passion project. and frankly i have no time or patiences to tolerate this kind of behavior.

The telling sign was that directly after EA, Callum, their PR guy, said okay, we are done here, no more dev blogs. As if the EA sales were the final goal. He had to reconsider later, as EA needs actually even more communication, but the mentality was clear.

 

[BulletTrain]

I suppose we'll get a better idea of what to expect if/when they do release that updated roadmap post they promised a few weeks ago, but until then, what we have to go on is this post. There isn't much about missing old elements being added in there, unfortunately. The majority of that list is "improvements to <thing that exists in game already>"

I am going to agree with you there. I was going to hunt down various threads and articles on the subject I had read over the past year but then realized that would undermine your point that this is TW's job.

I am going to play devil's advocate for a moment though and say although I very very much want the roadmap you mentioned. I have worked on enough projects myself to know the dangers of providing timelines and roadmaps. If you say 2 months and deliver in 1 month and 29 days, you are a god among men. If you say 1 month and deliver in 1 month and 1 day you are the devil incarnate and should burn in the deepest pits of hell. Same thing with a roadmap if you can't deliver things in the order promised which can easily happen for various reasons. There is no real upside imho.

Having said that though, I very much would like that roadmap or timeline. So pleeeeeeeeeeease gimme gimme gimme!

I for my part am gonna wait and see instead of this review bombing idea. Because there are two groups in particular that are quite susceptible to reviews. People who only buy games only from review ratings and investors and creditors and what they usually have in common is they don't understand the product or company. I think best case scenario you'll create a headache for TW without getting what you want.



TLDR: Roadmap good for us, not good for TW. Give me roadmap now please! Review bombing not get you what you want.