Is the opinion which there is so many new players introduced to M&B series with Bannerlord a myth?

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First of all, a disclaimer. r/mountandblade subreddit founded at Jun 3, 2009. So demographically, there is huge chance that this subreddit consists so many of old players but still this is the largest social platform directly related M&B series ever.

As I ventured this forum, I stumbled upon and disagreed with the opinion that Bannerlord player base consists of considerable amount of new players who introduced M&B series with Bannerlord. So a while ago I did a poll asking the question "How many of players are introduced Mound and Blade series with Bannerlord". Unfortunately, after thousands votes reddit shows the number in the form of 1k, 2k etc. So there is 2k participants in this poll and 223 voters says "I only played Bannerlord" which makes of ((223/2000)*100) 11.65 % of the participants. There is a new poll posted by the user Madzieg.
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So the poll is like this. This is relatively new poll and there is 2 days before it is closed. I know there is still time but after certain voters participate in the poll, the percentage number of the choices does not change much. As of right now, there is 381 voters and 30 of them says "I play Bannerlord (never played Warband before)" which makes 7.87 % of the voters. With respect to the polls made in this subreddit, new player base somewhere at 10%. Imho, this number is not significant and I think Bannerlord failed to attract considerable amount of new players to the series. Of course, time could change this number.

I did another poll regarding if the players need mods to enjoy the game and 37.66 % of the voters said yes. I think it is considerable amount of the players.

All I am saying is I have strong opinion that TW tried to attract new players with their approach of developing their game which I think a lot of forum user here share this opinion but this number is a failure in my book. I think TW should abandon their approach and try to look what made Warband successful.
 
All I am saying is I have strong opinion that TW tried to attract new players with their approach of developing their game which I think a lot of forum user here share this opinion but this number is a failure in my book. I think TW should abandon their approach and try to look what made Warband successful.
They sold millions of copies of Bannerlord, that's already a huge success for TW. Also the polls are irrelevant because of the small amount of voters + the subreddit is kind of niche imo...
Yet I agree they need look back on Warband's success to maintain a decent amount of people actually playing the game
 
They sold millions of copies of Bannerlord, that's already a huge success for TW. Also the polls are irrelevant because of the small amount of voters + the subreddit is kind of niche imo...
Yet I agree they need look back on Warband's success to maintain a decent amount of people actually playing the game
While I agree Bannerlord has things to learn from Warband. It's a little ironic don't you think?

Afterall bannerlords player count is consistently a massive improvement over warband; even during Warband height;

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Aside from 2 surges in playercounts; Warband averaged around 10-12k players consistently for a decade. Bannerlord (even after all this EA period); averages around 20k.

There are plenty of reasons to suggest Bannerlord is a lesser sibling to Warband; but playercount can hardly be listed as one of them.
 
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the small amount of voters + the subreddit is kind of niche imo...
Polls are never meant to show what exactly reality is, they help us to see what is close to reality. I think statistically poll voter numbers are quite considerable amount to form an opinion from them. Bannerlord sold numbers are a success, I do not argue about that. It is about how many new players are introduced to M&B series with Bannerlord.

Btw, a reminder, Warband sold 10M copies according to Ali Erkin at Gamescom 2018. Which suggests that Bannerlord sold numbers hugely depended on Warband player base.
 
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While I agree Bannerlord has things to learn from Warband. It's a little ironic don't you think?

Afterall bannerlords player count is consistently a massive improvement over warband; even during Warband height;

PXtQZ6a.png

Aside from 2 surges in playercounts; Warband averaged around 10-12k players consistently for a decade. Bannerlord (even after all this EA period); averages around 20k.

There are plenty of reasons to suggest Bannerlord is a lesser sibling to Warband; but playercount can hardly be listed as one of them.
Playercount has really become irrelevant when you consider bannerlord success was dependent from warband success.

Yes warband didn't get peak players of 100k, but that's normal for a game series establishing itself in the gaming sphere, which is what warband really was. A game that put a foothold for taleworlds to go forward with. Now it's up to debate if they made the best out of it.
 
Playercount has really become irrelevant when you consider bannerlord success was dependent from warband success.
Not just my thoughts but also this is what polls suggest.

As of right now there is 494 voters and 50 of them says "I came back to Warband (played Bannerlord before)" which makes 10.12 % of the voters, they either do not like what they see in Bannerlord or waiting for the game be out of EA. 131 of the voters says "I play Warband (never played Bannerlord before)" which makes 26.51 % of the voters, they either can not afford Bannerlord right now or they do not like what they see or they wait EA to be over or combination of these.
 
I would argue that 12 years ago a decent internet connection was not a given as it is now, therefore not as many people playing warband would have appeared online on steam while doing so.
 
I would argue that 12 years ago a decent internet connection was not a given as it is now, therefore not as many people playing warband would have appeared online on steam while doing so.
Exactly. some people do not take into account Warband released at 2010. I started to play Warband at 2016 so I was not present at Warband release. I do not think Warband get the hype, Bannerlord get but still for 8 years, it sold 10M until 2018. While TW attended Gamescoms, E3, released countless devblogs so on and so forth for Bannerlord but polls suggest that new player base are somewhere at 10%.
 
I would argue that 12 years ago a decent internet connection was not a given as it is now, therefore not as many people playing warband would have appeared online on steam while doing so.
Yep, besides the other points, games now will always have a massive number/population compared to 10~15 years ago just on that alone. Greater population worldwide = more access to PCs/consoles/internet.
If Warband was released same time as BL and with the same 'graphical fidelity'; would be interesting to see that comparison.
 
Btw, regarding voter numbers, three of the sample size calculator are giving the number 385 for a population of 10 million with 95% confidence level and 5% confidence interval.

 
@Bjorn The Upset i think what you are really getting out of this poll is that Bannerlord might, and probably has sold to more new players than Warband did but a very good majority of players who reach the niches of the Subreddits or the forums comes from Warband.

I am one of the guys who started playing the series with Bannerlord and never touched Warband, also i happen to be the guy with most hours streamed on Twitch over the past year.

i got interested in the game back when it released and even in that broken state i felt it was something i never experienced before and wanted to try. got the game January 2021 and played 4K hours since then.

i guess what i am trying to say is that there is a small proportion of guys like me who happened to stumble into the game and kept playing. My aim nowadays is not to only have fun with the game but also teach what i learned from experience and testings to always better my game and help new players keep playing.

in my eyes Bannerlord is a "could be game" lots of potential, very raw, and a lot to be done. I am mostly on the positive side but i don't lack the criticism here and there.
But the interest in players is normal in my opinion. Bannerlord is an early access game and most of the buyers are waiting on that big release while we, members of the niche, play almost religiously and are always interested in trying out new patches, your average casual gamer is more likely to not do the same.
 
a very good majority of players who reach the niches of the Subreddits or the forums comes from Warband.
As I said in the disclaimer, this is true but this is the biggest platform to do that. And after certain number, you can not get more accurate than this as stated here in the perspective of statistics.

A good maximum sample size is usually 10% as long as it does not exceed 1000​

A good maximum sample size is usually around 10% of the population, as long as this does not exceed 1000. For example, in a population of 5000, 10% would be 500. In a population of 200,000, 10% would be 20,000. This exceeds 1000, so in this case the maximum would be 1000.

Even in a population of 200,000, sampling 1000 people will normally give a fairly accurate result. Sampling more than 1000 people won’t add much to the accuracy given the extra time and money it would cost.
If we look at this way, the people who reached this niches of the Subreddit which has 230k members should be reflection of the real player base.
So that is why I think polls results are close to reality. There is a misconception in the community I encountered so much that which says Bannerlord sold so much among the new players and they are loving the game as it is. So that is why I started this thread with the data which I could gather from the biggest platform there is.

Bannerlord is an early access game and most of the buyers are waiting on that big release
This is something I disagree. This statement of yours is a speculation as well as what I am about to say: The game is released, it does not matter if it is EA or not. We will not see a spike like the EA release at the normal release.

I know there is still time but after certain voters participate in the poll, the percentage number of the choices does not change much.
This is what I experienced while doing polls. I read that sample size article today and this is really what I experienced.
 
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This is something I disagree. This statement of yours is a speculation as well as what I am about to say: The game is released, it does not matter if it is EA or not. We will not see a spike like the EA release at the normal release
i honestly disagree. i have the data over months to kinda prove it

after each patch i can see a new wave of interested people coming back to Twitch to see how things are looking and if you look at my channel numbers, currently 2 months after the latest patch you can see my channel not doing as good as after 1.7.2 or 1.7. landed.
i can see the same happening for 1.7.3. and the eventual full release. lots of guys come and ask if the game is released yet on a daily basis. the interest is there.

that doesn't mean the interest will still be there after 2 months but don't underestimate the statement the game coming out of EA can make and especially if that brings the steam workshop with it
I do agree that for us regular players the game is indeed released but to those casual guys it's not, for them the end of EA is the actual release.
But hey, guess we will see when TW will decide the game it's ready to come out of early access who's prediction was closer to reality
 
While I agree Bannerlord has things to learn from Warband. It's a little ironic don't you think?

Afterall bannerlords player count is consistently a massive improvement over warband; even during Warband height;

PXtQZ6a.png

Aside from 2 surges in playercounts; Warband averaged around 10-12k players consistently for a decade. Bannerlord (even after all this EA period); averages around 20k.

There are plenty of reasons to suggest Bannerlord is a lesser sibling to Warband; but playercount can hardly be listed as one of them.

Adding to some interesting points raised above, one should also compare the number of players that were on Steam during Warband's reign, and the number of players on Steam today, which I believe skyrocketed especially after the pandemic, and skews further the validity of those raw datas.
What I mean by that, is 10k concurrent players in 2012-2013 could be a much higher figure relatively than let's say in 2022 for obvious reasons.
 
after each patch i can see a new wave of interested people coming back to Twitch to see how things are looking and if you look at my channel numbers, currently 2 months after the latest patch you can see my channel not doing as good as after 1.7.2 or 1.7. landed.
The same spike happens at Bannerlord player count at Steamdb. Usually, players want to try the new patch, I could make the argument that people who watches your stream are lazy to launch the game, instead they want your opinion about it. As long as we do not have data on this, all we can do is speculation.

Edit: Also I could argue that the people who wait for the normal release could hugely consist of Warband player base.
 
Usually, players want to try the new patch, I could make the argument that people who watches your stream are lazy to launch the game, instead they want your opinion about it.
wouldn't say necessarily lazy. there are lot's of peeps who behave in different ways as a patch hits.

Some will play as you play,
Some will wait to see if it's stable then download
Some may be waiting until the patch comes out of the beta before trying it, (mainly for mods reasons)
And some may not have the time to play it now (work, driving, studies, playing other games)
Some just chill and want to listen to an idiot on the internet
A lot of people still seem to be scared to try new version as they are afraid they may corrupt their saves, so they hold back until their campaigns are over
and a few days later you can see some returning players too, i don't jump on the newest patches of all the games i own but a selected few, so some guys might not even realize when a new patch is out

So yeah, some are lazy, some don't have time or some are just waiting
 
There's also a big difference between people just who bought the game and played it once and moved on and people who continue to play it, or who play it and warband or who fallow the series form warband (and it's family). I believe bannerlord was bought by a considerable amount of players who didn't play warband, but that much of them bought it based on hype from warband players and warband's reputation. Many people hear of warband in people's 3x3 and other types of "best of/favorite" but don't bother to try the old 2010 game. Then the new one comes out and they give it a try.

TW should know though that this hype and reputation from warband will not continue onto the next game if Bannerlord isn't brought up to warband level at some point. AT best you will have people saying "Wait for the full version because it takes 20+ mods that we couldn't have during EA to make Bannerlord good". That is unless TW decides to start making meaningful improvements in the vein their players have been asking for for 2 years now.
 
I'd just like to add to Steam charts that Warband peak may not even be presented there, let's remember that when it was released it was preferred to have a non-Steam copy for many larger mods that were easier to handle with separate installs. Now, I know that players using mods tend to be a fraction of playerbase on average, but I have a feeling that M&B has those numbers skewed a bit more.
 
I'd just like to add to Steam charts that Warband peak may not even be presented there, let's remember that when it was released it was preferred to have a non-Steam copy for many larger mods that were easier to handle with separate installs. Now, I know that players using mods tend to be a fraction of playerbase on average, but I have a feeling that M&B has those numbers skewed a bit more.
What the hell are you talking about? Most people play with mods, and steam is actually extremely helpful for such.
 
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