I made an account just to write this, replying to the many absurdity that I read in this thread and many other.
First, the comparison to Star Citizen is ridiculous. SC sold ships costing literal hundred of dollars that is not even yet in the game. Its alpha consisted only a single system with few moons and planetoids and perform terribly to boot. Meanwhile Bannerlord despite being barren all around, is already functional. You've got whole map of Calradia to conquer. Factions moves around, waging war to each other. SC comparison for me ironically makes Bannerlord looking like a complete game.
Then many of you accused TaleWorld for scamming and left us based on no evidence at all asides from 'lack of communication'. I'll be blunt here, have you seen your own post when asking them for to be more communicative? Of course you don't because they reads like you're holding them at gunpoint. I say "gee no wonder TW stay silent if all of you posts like this". It's embarrassing and painful to look at.
Silence does not equal of not doing sh*t. It has been in my experience of seeing an early access or kickstarter game development where people grew restless and demands more than what the developers could actually give. Worse still when people twisted whatever the developers said no matter to view their negative perception of the ongoing updates. Like taking words out of context, underestimating game development, or just straight up insults. I have seen this with Bloodstained (often said to be the second Mighty No. 9), and most famously No Man's Sky.
NMS which at the time of its release, is no better than an early access title. Being hyped to point of no return, the backlash was crazy. People actually doxing the developers and send death threats to them but especially so to Sean Murray. They went silent, for weeks, as the rages and memes went on. People accused them of escaping with the money. How the detractors are so wrong. Turned out Hello Games (NMS dev) fixing the game in silence. They address the community that stick with them, albeit sparsely. Patches after patches they keep adding features. Later patches become updates. Now NMS, after 5 years of continual development and post update support in which Hello Games mostly only communicate what they need to say and receive, has become a game that praised and applauded.
That is why silence sometimes, if not most of the time is much better than 'active' communication. Game development is not linear, and sometimes the work can get exponential. You might say Steward perks for instances only add bonuses to the fiefs you governed, but the implementation most likely will dominoed into myriad of problems. And what do you expect from 'active' communication anyway? That the devs need to gives you weekly of what they are doing with such and such? Not only that drip feeding like that would only get sneered from many of you, but there will be times when the devs promised something in such updates, pulling or cancelling the promise because it turned causing so much problem, and of course it will be the percect ammunition for yet another rage threads.
I'm starting with Bannerlord so I can only empathize with you who waited 8 years for this. Waiting for such a long time must be very frustating when the game you most hyped on for all that years turned to be a less-but-prettier version of Warband (which I dare to say even more frustating because it just make return to Warband even harder). But your frustration doesn't justify your accusation of TaleWorld being lazy or incompetent, as if they don't have their own share of frustration along those years.
Consider this: Warband was released in 2009. The vanilla game graphic from what I see feels like one, if not two, generation behind. It looks like a game from the early 2000's. The jump from that to Bannerlord is nothing sort of remarkable, if you are not accustomed to the high res mod that the modder must have putting out all these years. Even so the graphic development must have been rough because in the past 8 years, the graphical standar has moved so much (however it also need to be said that graphic standard fortunately has widen up too).
Then we have consider another outside factor. TaleWorlds is a developer based in Turkey. They don't have as much as established home market as Europe and US do. Moreover, their situation there politically (and of course economically follows suit) isn't as better. Turkey economy has been worsened ever since the Arab Spring, and take a even deeper dive still when Syrian Civil War broke out. Economic hardships must have been significantly affect the development, especially considering the scope of the game TaleWorlds aiming for.
While yes TaleWorlds has Warband on its back catalogue, I don't think that game alone able to keep the sequel project afloats. Warband following is much more small in size. When it was released on Steam, the game already several years older. The graphic standard back in the early 2010's was also not as wide as it is today. So in my opinion, until Bannerlord sold like hotcakes TaleWorlds must have run on passions because I just couldn't see Warband could keep them afloat for all this 8 years.
Yeah, now they got money they should hired more people right? Sadly it was never that easy in program, even more so game development. You couldn't just throw more programmer at the game and hoped the game done faster. There is a known pitfalls like that in software development where it more programmer just make the progress slower. Like I said, game development isn't linear and because it also not easy. TaleWorlds needs more careful consideration before hiring people by knowing which and where they need more manpower. Throwing money and hoping it works is just bad management and lots of early access and kickstarter developer does that.
That is all I wanted to say. TaleWorlds definitely not flawless in their handling of Bannerlord ongoing development, but please be more considerate to them as well. There is not anyway I could see Bannerlord in all of its barren feature as a cashgrab title. In fact, you know this too and that is why you are so frustated because you wanted to love the game in its fullest. However accusing them of not doing anything on top pile of cash wouldn't be any help either.
Just do what others has said already: quit the game for few months, then get back. That is what the NMS loyals doing since released. Hell, I even do that too with Stellaris where at the time of released is pretty sh*t in hindsight.
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