I bought Rimworld years ago in the deep early access, and it wasn't even slightly that much bugged, slash crashing like bannerlord. Please don't compare the slowly and decently polished gem that Tynan gave us, to this sort-of-playable-but-highly-crashing bug feast that TW did. They knew half of quests are crashing the game, they knew saves are going mad, the snowballing, all of that, and sold it as EA anyway. EA is about polishing the already sort of good product, because you are small company, and can't find out on your own that if you do some unlikely scenario, some issue will occur. And also to get the money to keep working to adding new functions and so on, with a player base that is giving you feedback how they feel about it and how those new things work in the game tested in different situations/scenarios. Worst thing TW is not even a "small" company! Its at last mediumish. So no mate, it is not "works fine" at the moment, not at all, and definitely not in comparision to the Rimworld that was build in EA by one damn guy, and still was decent product at the time.
-
If you are reporting a bug, please head over to our Technical Support section for Bannerlord.
It needs to be stated.
- Thread starter RenegadeAngel
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
I bought Rimworld years ago in the deep early access, and it wasn't even slightly that much bugged, slash crashing like bannerlord. Please don't compare the slowly and decently polished gem that Tynan gave us, to this sort-of-playable-but-highly-crashing bug feast that TW did. They knew half of quests are crashing the game, they knew saves are going mad, the snowballing, all of that, and sold it as EA anyway. EA is about polishing the already sort of good product, because you are small company, and can't find out on your own that if you do some unlikely scenario, some issue will occur. And also to get the money to keep working to adding new functions and so on, with a player base that is giving you feedback how they feel about it and how those new things work in the game tested in different situations/scenarios. Worst thing TW is not even a "small" company! Its at last mediumish. So no mate, it is not "works fine" at the moment, not at all, and definitely not in comparision to the Rimworld that was build in EA by one damn guy, and still was decent product at the time.
Mawotb
Recruit
I missed this point. I don't know how far out of touch with things you have to be to say that this is functional. At best one thing works. You pay money for troops, they charge upkeep per day, they upgrade, they fight, they die. The moment you go beyond that is EA. It is very easy to look at this game and see where their years of development have gone. Just look at the opening menu. Great physics, yet anyone can see the low quality textures and polys that knows how to look. Smithing is completely unrelated to the business, que mention of all the content in warband thats not in this. The economy is going to take years of balancing, best done after adding in all content. The sheer magnitude of the development conversation needed around the economy and businesses and if they will operate the same or have more functionality than warband. Currently you have to carry all components for smithing in your own inventory and you cant deposit goods into businesses. A lot of stuff is in the background. Because I understand the code logic and handling means that they are going to have a messy time dealing with that later down the track. All of these issues of double handling features means balancing is irrelevant until after features are in and the more balancing they do and bugfixing they do before core content is in delays more important developments. Patching in a cap on businesses? Stupid. Why? Because they didnt have the conversation necessary to understand that making upkeep daily means everything has to be in far smaller quantities. Standard troops shouldnt even be 1 coin a day (note how long one grain costs and how long it lasts one person). Stuff like this is end release balancing. It is far better to get functional core content in asap than some patches. I will leave it there.
OK, now I see what you are getting at, sorry I did not see that subcontext, I was mainly reacting to the talk about EA itself.
And sure, EA is not an excuse for the game to be in bad state and it is only natural to point out whatever is wrong with the game. But there seem to be a lot of people that react very strongly about the starting state of Bannerlords EA. I can see where they come from, because the game was in 8 years of development after all and we do not get any info on how those 8 years have resulted in the starting state of the game. But many voice it as if it an utter catastrophe that after 8 years we get this despite in on itself not being so horrible, at least in my opinion. I mean, we had no real influence on it for the 8 years and yes, it was scheduled to release at some earlier point but they could not keep this goal.
Overall maybe disappointing but not so bad as people make it out to be.
So of course after 8 long years finally getting something tangible and with what we have seen in the trailers one of course get some expecation for the game at least. But some people put that bar really high I think and get extremely vocal about it. I mean, after 8 years the game got an EA release instead of being finished, I figure that should actually lower the expectations people have and possibly make them wary.
And this is why people should think it through before buying an EA access game. If you just cannot stomach getting something worse than your expectations then you should maybe wait with buying it and simply see what those who do buy into it have to say about it. See the reviews, see gameplay, see the forums and what issues the game might have.
And some of those people really get over zealous. They might offer valid critique and feedback but in a form that just makes others lash back because they feel attacked in their own expectations. Gotta defend it because I believe in it.
There is no other reason for this whole back and forth between "Why after 8 years is this EA so buggy" and "it's EA you know what you are buying".
People should just focus on what's at point, the game in its current state and if they are fine with having spent money on it now and if it will become the game they are expecting it to become. And the latter is something you can influence through feedback.
And don't take me wrong, it is still important to discuss Bannerlord's years of development and release because this information also forms expectations. But this is something that ultimately TW has to chime in on. But in the end it still resulted in the early access release of it. Having the option to evaluate the game itself right now is a good thing I believe and should not hinge solely on the fact that it took 8 years to get to it.
The game is as can be expected in an early access state. For the most part, you can play the game, but there are many bugs and issues that can hamper that play-through. It's really not much different from early access of other titles. So I'm guessing a lot of people hadn't heard of or tried early access before. Also, we're still talking about the first week of early access. We're not even a month into it.
Mawotb
Recruit
Ok everything keeps coming back to the same points people dont seem to be reading in earlier posts.
1. This has to be viewed with past/ present and future consideration. (8+ years of dev. clear poor choices in development that are understandable - however 55 ~ for a game that no one can prove or disprove will have aesthetic dlc, microtransactions or other costs that are paywalled in and content out. 'ghost'(ing) devs that are elusive at best and are taking silent moments to reflect on forums, there is no guarantee the game will ever get fully released or have atleast the same functionality as warband, or receive the balancing warband desperately needed and more.)
2. You have to buy the game right now and play it yourself to get an idea of what is and isn't in the game. This is a result of poor explanation and communication. A simple fix is stating what they honestly would like to get the game to, diplomacy, businesses, general feel and state, ideal AI in game period to achieve one faction domination without player influence, story, quests, aesthetics, superfluous content, MP, CO-OP etc.
3. People getting drowned in EA screeching. This forum is for people to whinge and ***** if they want to. Everyone is going to be reactionary to getting face first into the game and realising there is a high chance everything they want in the game is missing, incomplete or unbalanced. Everyone knows about EA, doesnt change a thing. I want to know about if businesses will function like warband -Yes/No/Maybe. Will there be more functionality Yes/No/Maybe. Instead myself and countless other threads get inundated with retarded EA screeches. You can't have holistic productive threads when the first OP is immediately met by unscrupulous EA spam.
4. Nowhere does TW seem to show they are open to early testing in SP. I only ever heard about MP beta. MP never has and never will function or operate even close to campaign. Thats like comparing one field battle or siege to a campaign. There are reasons developers use true stepwise development, to focus on one part at a time, instead of doing core campaign and mp separately, as mp requires server work and networking. This is always an issue in EA because of supply / demand.
5. The best view for Forums especially in EA games is to understand people are speaking in the context of 'I can't wait for more'. That's it. No one can sit here and say that TW is on point, they are fighting and doing what they can where they can. Is it optimised, never is. hindsight is a b****. Its easy to sit and criticise, its even easier to invalidate and worthlessly state the obvious. save end game balancing for later on in the future. Focus on game breaking stuff now or presenting ideas on missing content to support the devs not just by having the game.
1. This has to be viewed with past/ present and future consideration. (8+ years of dev. clear poor choices in development that are understandable - however 55 ~ for a game that no one can prove or disprove will have aesthetic dlc, microtransactions or other costs that are paywalled in and content out. 'ghost'(ing) devs that are elusive at best and are taking silent moments to reflect on forums, there is no guarantee the game will ever get fully released or have atleast the same functionality as warband, or receive the balancing warband desperately needed and more.)
2. You have to buy the game right now and play it yourself to get an idea of what is and isn't in the game. This is a result of poor explanation and communication. A simple fix is stating what they honestly would like to get the game to, diplomacy, businesses, general feel and state, ideal AI in game period to achieve one faction domination without player influence, story, quests, aesthetics, superfluous content, MP, CO-OP etc.
3. People getting drowned in EA screeching. This forum is for people to whinge and ***** if they want to. Everyone is going to be reactionary to getting face first into the game and realising there is a high chance everything they want in the game is missing, incomplete or unbalanced. Everyone knows about EA, doesnt change a thing. I want to know about if businesses will function like warband -Yes/No/Maybe. Will there be more functionality Yes/No/Maybe. Instead myself and countless other threads get inundated with retarded EA screeches. You can't have holistic productive threads when the first OP is immediately met by unscrupulous EA spam.
4. Nowhere does TW seem to show they are open to early testing in SP. I only ever heard about MP beta. MP never has and never will function or operate even close to campaign. Thats like comparing one field battle or siege to a campaign. There are reasons developers use true stepwise development, to focus on one part at a time, instead of doing core campaign and mp separately, as mp requires server work and networking. This is always an issue in EA because of supply / demand.
5. The best view for Forums especially in EA games is to understand people are speaking in the context of 'I can't wait for more'. That's it. No one can sit here and say that TW is on point, they are fighting and doing what they can where they can. Is it optimised, never is. hindsight is a b****. Its easy to sit and criticise, its even easier to invalidate and worthlessly state the obvious. save end game balancing for later on in the future. Focus on game breaking stuff now or presenting ideas on missing content to support the devs not just by having the game.
Amen to that. It's 2020, we all know what early access is thank you very much. That doesn't change the fact that we all expected more than that. It's not a big deal really, nobody's saying the devs should be burned at the stake, it's just natural to talk about the problems the game has in its current state.
Mawotb
Recruit
I literally say to my friend, a shining pile of **** is still a shining piece of ****. Not being able to humbly accept that is beyond infuriating, or constantly being pulled up on it just as much. Everyone is going to have an 'emotional' flavor to post on here and even more are not going to properly consider what they put up. Only brandish EA if a person doesnt understand a clear point of code, logic, content or other specific or constructive piece of information. My serious advice is TW is going to have to ride that and prove through consistent transparent work getting **** done that our tones will change. I have been very tame on this so far and I know every week or more there is going to be more and more people cropping up trying to participate here and getting screeched at. Furthermore without a clear roadmap by TW, there is going to be an inane amount of repetition and miscommunication with people not reading these threads properly. 100% so many of these threads are going to get necrod in the future.
Edit: for the benefit of TW - you need to have more than just a patch note release. put up a pinned thread or thread with intentions. shift the development benefit of the forums from past tense into present tense whinging into potentially constructive or heaven forbid positive discussion about future focus modules of development like diplomacy etc. i know they are working on this platform and now is the best time for forum specific additions or management style / formats for eveeryones benefit, nothing beats a sweet simple effective / efficient forum.
Huh? None is claiming you cannot give feedback. Crying over the unfinished game being unfinished is not feedback. Pointing out that missing stuff is missing is retarded. Maybe asking what the plan is about stuff missing and if it is planned for final release or got scrapped. Now that would be polite conversation and a valid question.
Pointing out bugs, broken features, issues, suggestions etc. etc. is kind of the upside of early access and what the developer hopes for (The other already getting part of the money back)
You are the only guy screeching being a child btw...
Oh, there is one?
Easy Access is a risk purchase. You void all warranty claims. That's it. If you are unsatisfied with the fuzzy roadmap or state of game presented,... you should not have signed an early access purchase or refund the purchase. That's it.
I would not go on the official forums and rail about it, maybe I would leave a negative review about it and warn other prospective buyers, you know, what would actually hurt them and helps others not to be as frustrated as you. I actually posted a positive review and still warned people that this is definetely in an early access state and not finished release.
I fully expected I might have wasted my money on a meh game, but I like it in its early access state already. Obviously you can come to a different conclusion, the point is I was okay with losing those 50 bucks.
I'm enjoying it but I also have to wonder what exactly they worked on the last two years. They had demos in 2018 that were pretty much what we're playing, so what did they do if they didn't finish the features, didn't test the PC systems they recommend, didn't play test for bugs, didn't notice many perks aren't doing anything, didn't play the game in general and see the snowball problem ect.....
Again I'm enjoying it and I'm impressed with the patches. I'm sure it will become the game we all want, but when my +3 arrows perk doesn't give me arrows.... what were they doing?
Again I'm enjoying it and I'm impressed with the patches. I'm sure it will become the game we all want, but when my +3 arrows perk doesn't give me arrows.... what were they doing?
Im just going to be short and sweet.
For the price I paid,rather than an "early access" beta, I feel like I'm paying to be a game tester of something thats very early phases....never encountered a game with so many bugs and missing functions even for a beta....
I guess the best comparison is when you put down a down payment of a housing development project to buy what it will become in a few years time after development....but hence "down payment"...the price paid so far was way too much for what its worth
For the price I paid,rather than an "early access" beta, I feel like I'm paying to be a game tester of something thats very early phases....never encountered a game with so many bugs and missing functions even for a beta....
I guess the best comparison is when you put down a down payment of a housing development project to buy what it will become in a few years time after development....but hence "down payment"...the price paid so far was way too much for what its worth
Plenty of early access titles are in worse shape than this game... While it would be great if companies would release beta material to early access only, usually it is used as funding development as going forward for most basic features. And a beta is a release candidate aka always feature complete and code frozen except for bug fixing. Early access is (sadly) long before that.
In terms of core gameplay Bannerlord *is* mostly feature complete (single player wise), the main issues are balancing and building up on the features (e.g. implementing quests, characters, etc.) aka closer to how early access should feel like than most early access titles. Main thing missing to me is more in the area of diplomacy, but I disgress, the hack and slash part of the game and all parts necessary for the bigger game are there.
We can complain how they spent 8 years on this but to me that'd be a different discussion than whether an early access release is okay or not. Yes, it feels early access, but a lot of it already is good, some of it needs balancing and other things need work.
Pricing wise: Never waste money on Early Access and wait instead if you do are not okay with wasting money. I evaluated whether I should buy this now or not, then decided I most likely will buy it anyway at some point and am okay with the price. The main point is: Early access is a gamble, not a clear purchase. To some extent I would hope game devs would not resort to that business model as it is messy and does excuse quality control issues far too long, but in the game arena that is where we are at now.
edit: Probably a difference in impression might also be individual stability of the game. I just had two crashes in certain circumstances, never a corrupted save file etc. so for me the game feels pretty stable. Maybe that is where the experiences differ alot. Obviously it should not be machine dependent.
I like the idea how you compared Bannerlord to a house but you missed something that Bannerlord is a house under construction while you are expecting a house under construction must be liveable somehow!! But nope, it doesn't have to be liveable at all and the whole purpose of early access to fix those issues at first place with the support of players that i could understand the outrage if Devs lied about their game but go read every single Dev diary that they always said there were issues and even recommended not to buy their game in early access if you mind such problems rather wait for full release but even then you people bought it and expecting a complete game that only God knows how exactly?!! So i think the only legit criticism is it's price as 50 dolar is really too much for an early access game but nobody bought the game for that money as they discounted it greatly from day one while they could ''milk'' fanbase easily if they wished!! Taleworlds is one of very few honest game developers in the sector so i am 100% sure they don't deserve any kind of outrage at all especially while there were many ''full'' release games in last few years with way more bugs and issues and entire milking operations with forced ''online'' games and microtransactions etc...
Last edited:
You can probably post this another million times. You still gonna find these kinds of hate posts from people who will not like anything that deviates at all from how they think reality should be. Anyway, I am having a blast with the game. Some things indeed are somewhat incomplete but other things are so well thought through and implemented. Battles are incredible fun. Especially if you work for another lord and have to implement his tactics. Notables are such a great addition to the game. The cities are so rich in detail and what you can do. The clan system, the kingdom system. Sure here and there rough around the edges. But to go complain here I think is ridiculous. Just think about the amount of complexity and content you're buying with 40€, ... complete insanity.
You clearly didn't not read my comment properly. I mentioned down payment. Otherwise called deposit in some counties.
Whilst I made it a simple statement, you just reiterated exactly what I said with a full explanation.
Giving me 20% discount off the full price basically is giving me the expectation this game is practically 80% complete.
Parachute007
Recruit
I've read through this thread but I think this point needs to be emphasised again.
Most people seem to be focussed on the threshold of completeness, stability, and performance required for an acceptable early access release. This is obviously a critical point, but we also need to consider the price. The early access discussion boils down to more than just 'is it stable enough to be played?' If a developer has put a price tag on their game, then they are telling you that it is worth the money now, regardless of how they may improve it in the future. You are not 'joining' some sort of 'scheme' by buying an early access game, and neither are you charitably contributing to the development fund out of the kindness of your heart and your hopes for the future. It should be worth the money now because you are being asked to pay for it now. The fact that you call it 'early access' does not change the fundamental nature of the transaction. You did not buy a promise, you bought a game. And unfinished or not, a game is still a game.
So the decision was made that the game was in a state such that is was acceptable to sell it at full price (release-day discounts notwithstanding as they'll apparently expire next week) on the understanding that it wasn't finished yet. Given everything that has happened over the past week, was this reasonable? Not at all. TaleWorlds clearly should have paused the development of new features for a few weeks to do nothing but test the current build prior to release. This testing was clearly either not done at all, or not done to anything near the extent it should have been, as is evident from the number of game-breaking issues which apparently affected all or the vast majority of players (in other words, issues you can't dismiss as being caused by one person's esoteric combination of hardware, etc.). The fact that many of these issues were fixed so quickly is good, but raises the question: why weren't they identified before release? There is still a sizeable number of people who cannot even launch the game at all. I was one of them for the first four days or so, until I stumbled across a comment on the Steam forums which fixed the issue for me. The issues remain unresolved by the developers and had I not had the good fortune to see that comment I would still not have even been able to access the game I paid for.
What I am trying to say is that the ultimate test should be the question: 'is it worth the money now?' Not 'will it be worth the money later?,' and not 'is it worth playing for any price or none?' You weren't asked to pay for it later, you were asked to pay for it now, and you were asked to pay full price or close to it. I think TaleWorlds are in the process of making a good game which is fun to play in its current state, but it is not currently worth full price and should not have been sold for it.
Most people seem to be focussed on the threshold of completeness, stability, and performance required for an acceptable early access release. This is obviously a critical point, but we also need to consider the price. The early access discussion boils down to more than just 'is it stable enough to be played?' If a developer has put a price tag on their game, then they are telling you that it is worth the money now, regardless of how they may improve it in the future. You are not 'joining' some sort of 'scheme' by buying an early access game, and neither are you charitably contributing to the development fund out of the kindness of your heart and your hopes for the future. It should be worth the money now because you are being asked to pay for it now. The fact that you call it 'early access' does not change the fundamental nature of the transaction. You did not buy a promise, you bought a game. And unfinished or not, a game is still a game.
So the decision was made that the game was in a state such that is was acceptable to sell it at full price (release-day discounts notwithstanding as they'll apparently expire next week) on the understanding that it wasn't finished yet. Given everything that has happened over the past week, was this reasonable? Not at all. TaleWorlds clearly should have paused the development of new features for a few weeks to do nothing but test the current build prior to release. This testing was clearly either not done at all, or not done to anything near the extent it should have been, as is evident from the number of game-breaking issues which apparently affected all or the vast majority of players (in other words, issues you can't dismiss as being caused by one person's esoteric combination of hardware, etc.). The fact that many of these issues were fixed so quickly is good, but raises the question: why weren't they identified before release? There is still a sizeable number of people who cannot even launch the game at all. I was one of them for the first four days or so, until I stumbled across a comment on the Steam forums which fixed the issue for me. The issues remain unresolved by the developers and had I not had the good fortune to see that comment I would still not have even been able to access the game I paid for.
What I am trying to say is that the ultimate test should be the question: 'is it worth the money now?' Not 'will it be worth the money later?,' and not 'is it worth playing for any price or none?' You weren't asked to pay for it later, you were asked to pay for it now, and you were asked to pay full price or close to it. I think TaleWorlds are in the process of making a good game which is fun to play in its current state, but it is not currently worth full price and should not have been sold for it.
Basically paid them to be a tester... Haha saved money from hiring QA testers and instead made money from it... Genius but unethical lol
