It's in EA... Should it excuse "everything"?

[Dragens]

@safe
Dude LITERALLY on the Steam Page. here you have the wording and they call everything.

Spoiler

WHAT THE DEVELOPERS HAVE TO SAY:
Why Early Access?
“Early access is something that we are very familiar with: our first title, Mount & Blade, helped to pioneer this method of release back in 2005. By working alongside our community we were able to deliver a unique gaming experience that players still enjoy to this day. These past experiences have taught us that it is vital to bring players in to help us iron out any issues and refine the game by utilizing feedback to bring it to the level that both our community and we expect.

We are hoping to run a productive and efficient early access for M&B Bannerlord as well. However, due to the nature and scale of game that we have envisioned, there may be various problems or missing features and content during the course of early access. Here are a few aspects you may need to know:

Unique Maps for Towns, Castles and Village: Although we plan to create unique maps for every town and castle in the game, it is a rather arduous process to create that many well designed maps and as such, different locations may share the same map during early access.

Quest Content: A portion of planned quests may be missing entirely, and those in the game may be using placeholder maps, animations, etc.

Balancing: Various aspects of the game may be poorly balanced. Parts of the game may be too easy or too hard.

Voice overs: Since the game uses a lot of dynamic text and hundreds of NPCs, we are planning to record voice-overs for only a limited subset of the dialog (greetings, companion introductions and main quest). Some of these planned voice overs may be missing or using placeholder versions during EA.

Savegames: We will strive to keep savegame compatibility during EA, however it may be technically infeasible to provide 100% backward compatibility in savegames and you may occasionally have to start a new game after updating to a new version.

Bugs and glitches: Although we strive to create a stable game experience, the game will be actively developed during early access and hence there will be a greater chance of bugs and glitches creeping up. It will of course be a priority to fix these.

Localization: Our current plan is to localize the game into the following languages: French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin American) and Turkish. Other languages may be added later. During EA, localizations for these languages may be missing entirely or may be incomplete.

Multiplayer modes and features: The game currently supports several popular multiplayer modes, but we are planning to add more modes and features, possibly including ranked matchmaking.

Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.

Developing M&B Bannerlord has been, and continues to be a fabulous experience for us, and we are excited to be walking the final phase of this journey together with our players. Of course, you may prefer to wait a little bit longer and hold off until the final, finished product. In this case, please consider adding the game to your wishlist and you’ll receive an email when we release the full version.”Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“While we do not have a set date for a full release at this moment in time, we expect that the game will be in early access for around a year. Our focus is on ensuring that the game is fun and enjoyable rather than imposing a deadline that might have a negative impact on the final product.”How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
“The early access version of the game contains a wealth of content that will keep players engaged for many hours. While the early access version is very much stable and playable, players can expect to run into some obscure bugs and other issues while playing that we intend to locate and fix before the full release.

The early access version will be reusing scenes for different towns, may lack some supporting features, may have a limited number of quests, voice-overs, etc. and may lack localizations for some languages.

Throughout the course of the early access period we intend to introduce the missing supporting features, such as, rebellions, kingdom creation and weapon crafting, while expanding and enhancing many of the existing features that are outlined below.”What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“In terms of content, the early access version of the game contains all of the main staples of the Mount & Blade experience, with a host of content that is new to the series. Players can create their own character using the game’s character creation system; explore the continent of Calradia; gather their own warband of troops; command and fight alongside their troops in large scale battles using the game’s extensive command system and intuitive skill-based directional combat system; raid settlements; lay siege to and capture enemy towns and castles; trade items and goods using the game’s deep economy system; engage in politics and diplomacy; manage their own clan; upgrade and manage settlements; gather armies and wage war; and much, much more... all in a vast singleplayer sandbox setting where no two playthroughs are the same. The early access version also includes fully supported multiplayer game modes for players to test their combat skills and tactical prowess against players from all over the world.”Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“There is no plan to change pricing after early access.”How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
“We intend to use a range of different methods to gather player feedback and data throughout the early access period. These include engaging with users directly on our official forum and our Steam forum, requesting specific feedback through questionnaires, hosting and participating in multiplayer events alongside our community, and using analytics tools to gather data.”

and you know what? Its irrelevant for me that you call yourself an experienced player when you are not even able to read a steam page properly. How much deep knowledge do you have about combat then? a feeling? just guessing?

 

[safe]

@safe
Dude LITERALLY on the Steam Page. here you have the wording and they call everything.

Spoiler

WHAT THE DEVELOPERS HAVE TO SAY:
Why Early Access?
“Early access is something that we are very familiar with: our first title, Mount & Blade, helped to pioneer this method of release back in 2005. By working alongside our community we were able to deliver a unique gaming experience that players still enjoy to this day. These past experiences have taught us that it is vital to bring players in to help us iron out any issues and refine the game by utilizing feedback to bring it to the level that both our community and we expect.

We are hoping to run a productive and efficient early access for M&B Bannerlord as well. However, due to the nature and scale of game that we have envisioned, there may be various problems or missing features and content during the course of early access. Here are a few aspects you may need to know:

Unique Maps for Towns, Castles and Village: Although we plan to create unique maps for every town and castle in the game, it is a rather arduous process to create that many well designed maps and as such, different locations may share the same map during early access.

Quest Content: A portion of planned quests may be missing entirely, and those in the game may be using placeholder maps, animations, etc.

Balancing: Various aspects of the game may be poorly balanced. Parts of the game may be too easy or too hard.

Voice overs: Since the game uses a lot of dynamic text and hundreds of NPCs, we are planning to record voice-overs for only a limited subset of the dialog (greetings, companion introductions and main quest). Some of these planned voice overs may be missing or using placeholder versions during EA.

Savegames: We will strive to keep savegame compatibility during EA, however it may be technically infeasible to provide 100% backward compatibility in savegames and you may occasionally have to start a new game after updating to a new version.

Bugs and glitches: Although we strive to create a stable game experience, the game will be actively developed during early access and hence there will be a greater chance of bugs and glitches creeping up. It will of course be a priority to fix these.

Localization: Our current plan is to localize the game into the following languages: French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin American) and Turkish. Other languages may be added later. During EA, localizations for these languages may be missing entirely or may be incomplete.

Multiplayer modes and features: The game currently supports several popular multiplayer modes, but we are planning to add more modes and features, possibly including ranked matchmaking.

Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.

Developing M&B Bannerlord has been, and continues to be a fabulous experience for us, and we are excited to be walking the final phase of this journey together with our players. Of course, you may prefer to wait a little bit longer and hold off until the final, finished product. In this case, please consider adding the game to your wishlist and you’ll receive an email when we release the full version.”Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“While we do not have a set date for a full release at this moment in time, we expect that the game will be in early access for around a year. Our focus is on ensuring that the game is fun and enjoyable rather than imposing a deadline that might have a negative impact on the final product.”How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
“The early access version of the game contains a wealth of content that will keep players engaged for many hours. While the early access version is very much stable and playable, players can expect to run into some obscure bugs and other issues while playing that we intend to locate and fix before the full release.

The early access version will be reusing scenes for different towns, may lack some supporting features, may have a limited number of quests, voice-overs, etc. and may lack localizations for some languages.

Throughout the course of the early access period we intend to introduce the missing supporting features, such as, rebellions, kingdom creation and weapon crafting, while expanding and enhancing many of the existing features that are outlined below.”What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“In terms of content, the early access version of the game contains all of the main staples of the Mount & Blade experience, with a host of content that is new to the series. Players can create their own character using the game’s character creation system; explore the continent of Calradia; gather their own warband of troops; command and fight alongside their troops in large scale battles using the game’s extensive command system and intuitive skill-based directional combat system; raid settlements; lay siege to and capture enemy towns and castles; trade items and goods using the game’s deep economy system; engage in politics and diplomacy; manage their own clan; upgrade and manage settlements; gather armies and wage war; and much, much more... all in a vast singleplayer sandbox setting where no two playthroughs are the same. The early access version also includes fully supported multiplayer game modes for players to test their combat skills and tactical prowess against players from all over the world.”Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“There is no plan to change pricing after early access.”How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
“We intend to use a range of different methods to gather player feedback and data throughout the early access period. These include engaging with users directly on our official forum and our Steam forum, requesting specific feedback through questionnaires, hosting and participating in multiplayer events alongside our community, and using analytics tools to gather data.”

and you know what? Its irrelevant for me that you call yourself an experienced player when you are not even able to read a steam page properly. How much deep knowledge do you have about combat then? a feeling? just guessing?

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[Demoulius]

Oeh. Topic is excellent bait! 6 pages already

But for the slim chance that it is serious. In my opinion it does. People commenting that X or Y isent implemented yet... I think TW was more focused on getting the game to a certain playable state. They made it quite clear that they expected to be in EA for a full year and listed things that werent completed yet, were missing or were faulty.

So dont like what you see? Well I think sending them constructive feedback goes a far longer way then complaining in a thread like this. Also come back later, week or month or so later and see how it changed.

Game is bare bones atm. The game is functional but missing so many perks that should make it a better experience that you wont get the experience intended for the final product.

 

[Morbo513]

As many have already said, you don't buy into an early-access game if you're expecting a complete, matured and fleshed-out experience. Bugs, performance & technical issues, incomplete/unimplemented features and content are par for the course. The issue is that it muddies the water of whether something's a deliberate design-decision, is still unfinished, or will stay largely as-is due to technical/developmental constraints.
AI is one of those big hanging question-marks, by all accounts I've heard it's the most challenging aspect of game development, I imagine that goes double for a game as complex as M&B. Maybe it's a case of TW lacking the ability to enhance it significantly. Or maybe it's a case of it not being worth them focusing on before all the other game systems, content and balancing are ironed out. Maybe it's neither, and it will be steadily improved alongside all other aspects of the game.
So I can understand why there are people throwing a fit about the state of the game, beneath the sense of entitlement many people have exhibited since release, there's a lot of uncertainty regarding the ultimate form Bannerlord will take; whether it's going to remain Warband with a new coat of paint and a few extra bells & whistles (Which is honestly fine by me), whether it'll go a step further, or if some of its systems will stay feeling like a downgrade.

 

[safe]

As many have already said, you don't buy into an early-access game if you're expecting a complete, matured and fleshed-out experience. Bugs, performance & technical issues, incomplete/unimplemented features and content are par for the course. The issue is that it muddies the water of whether something's a deliberate design-decision, is still unfinished, or will stay largely as-is due to technical/developmental constraints.
AI is one of those big hanging question-marks, by all accounts I've heard it's the most challenging aspect of game development, I imagine that goes double for a game as complex as M&B. Maybe it's a case of TW lacking the ability to enhance it significantly. Or maybe it's a case of it not being worth them focusing on before all the other game systems, content and balancing are ironed out. Maybe it's neither, and it will be steadily improved alongside all other aspects of the game.
So I can understand why there are people throwing a fit about the state of the game, beneath the sense of entitlement many people have exhibited since release, there's a lot of uncertainty regarding the ultimate form Bannerlord will take; whether it's going to remain Warband with a new coat of paint and a few extra bells & whistles (Which is honestly fine by me), whether it'll go a step further, or if some of its systems will stay feeling like a downgrade.

Once again ik what EA is, i have agreed to buy a game that is not finished yet and lacks many of the announced features but i at least expect it to be playable. Let's put aside that fact that it was meant to be finished in 2016 but they delayed it in order to "polish it" but don't you think that such huge perfomance issues like multiple random crashes are a bit too much? The game as EA has right to not be ready in terms of having all the features but you can't call an ability to run the game with some decent stability a feature that is meant to come in the future. I can understand occasional crashes and fps drops but it can't be the general rule. My disappointment comes from the fact that i ve played beta and sadly i ve noticed that nothing has changed since then in terms of multiplayer experience. Furthermore SP seems to be even more unstable. Now tell me what TW has been doing for the last months. Many of the existing issues aren't new, they haven't be revealed along with EA release but they were know already for months.

 

[mangalore]

the point is not that you should be happy about the state of the EA game right now, but imo you should check your tone and privilege. The EA label clearly states that for whatever reason they release an unpolished game lacking features. Yes, they probably ****ed up project planning, and wasted time and resources and maybe that is also a reason they need to release now or abandon the project. But the bottomline is, the game is stated as unfinished and thus complaining about its advertised state is ... weird.

You can give feedback on bugs, balancing, features you want to see first, but whining that it is not implemented is simply pointless. You have responsibility when buying as well. And if you bought something you do not enjoy, usually you and I have to shrug our shoulders and get on with our lives unless it is fraudulent.
Given the state EA and Steam is in Bannerlord is easily in the top 10% of released early access titles and given cesspit that is Steam not even bad for a full release by a small development studio (plenty of completely broken and abandoned EA games on Steam)

Now you can / should moan that easy access should not be an excuse to release unfinished games but that is a conceptual question of you deciding whether you are okay with the business model or not on principle, not in what state this or that particular game is. Right now it is a business model and this game is in a pretty good state when comparing it to its peers on release.

To me it is not a question of excuse, it is more a question on how someone puts forward their grievances and suggestions. In German there is the saying "Der Ton macht die Musik" (aka how you say it is more important than what you say). So I would not discourage people saying what they found and what they want, just ponder the tone they say it.

I remember when I stumbled over some Alpha of this game years ago... well, if you want the spectrum of where this game could be,... that was rough...

Once again ik what EA is, i have agreed to buy a game that is not finished yet and lacks many of the announced features but i at least expect it to be playable. ...

I accept that it is not satisfied answer, but my impression is for a vast number of people stability is not an issue at all and the game very playable. I had maybe two crashes thus far (some graphics bugging out). Other stuff is rough, but game is playable and stable for a vast majority of players, which does not mean it could not have stability issues with certain setups which you might fall under.

 

[Demoulius]

Reminder - it is every consumer's right to complain about the product he paid for and you have nothing to do with it and your pathetic 13 yo's responses like "bye" etc won't change it. If you like the game so much go and make a separate post where you praise the game or give some feedback if you really care for it. EA and disclaimers don't justify laziness. Don't tell me that 8 or even 10 years was not enough to at least make the game not crash randomly or to remove objects that are floating in the air. It's not a full of features RPG where it's difficult to test everything. If the game is unfinished why then sell it for the complete product price? Where are the last 4 years of polishing it? - the game was supposed to be released in 2016. Is it early access or open beta ? If i sell you a car for the full price with a disclaimer that something may not work and you won't be even able to start the engine or open the door will it be also alright because I warned you ?

People dont have a 'right' to complain. You are free to do so but dont act as if it is some sort of human right But one thing: it goes both ways. People can complain, and people can agree or disagree as well. Dont like what you get for a reply? Well thats just bad tbh... People can share their opinion here, that goes for everyone.

Your analgy of a car also doesent really work. If you want to use that analogy effectively though; what you are doing is ordering a car who will be delivered in a year and then complain that you cant drive in it now.

 

[Dragens]

@safe its really laughable that you call the game "unplayable" For me its a hell lot playabe so just because your expecations get ahead of reality you might consider backtracking where you failed to realize what to expect of the game. You could blame the company but most likely it would be advisable to just blame yourself for not being able to read simple information and for not being wise enough to hold your horses when going into EA Games. You can only be disappointed if you expected MORE so I guess you just overestimated an EA product well known what EA stands for. Its really just hilarious how dumb that it.

 

[LeeCalabrese]

Quite dissapointed tbr, gonna wait a couple months and see how the game holds up

 

[safe]

People dont have a 'right' to complain. You are free to do so but dont act as if it is some sort of human right But one thing: it goes both ways. People can complain, and people can agree or disagree as well. Dont like what you get for a reply? Well thats just bad tbh... People can share their opinion here, that goes for everyone.

Your analgy of a car also doesent really work. If you want to use that analogy effectively though; what you are doing is ordering a car who will be delivered in a year and then complain that you cant drive in it now.

The difference between car situation and BL one is that if i order something the people that are working on it tell me exactly when they will finish and if they don't do their job as it was agreed i can demand refund or to get a discount. Wiht BL you can refund it only up to 2 hrs which is laughable amount of time and you can't be sure when and if they will finish it and how it will look. You pay full price for an empty promise that someone will do their job properly in some undefined future.

People dont have a 'right' to complain. You are free to do so but dont act as if it is some sort of human right

- not sure what this gibberish is supposed to mean, is it forbiden to complain anywhere? Especially if you pay for something and that thing is broken for you.

For me its a hell lot playabe

And again i dont care if the game works good for many ppl, it can work perfectly for 70%(for instance) of them but if it doesn't work for me and the other 30% it's broken. You don't decide by majority what's broken and what's not, for me and many more there are crashes and performance issues and the fact that you don't have them changes nothing.

 

[Mabons]

The fact that there are more users bumping up unnecessary threads like these and getting easy points, rather than being in the suggestion forums trying to highlight productive and important suggestions in order to improve the game sums it up good.

That's all the singleplayer forum feels like to me, the more I read in it.

 

[Demoulius]

The difference between car situation and BL one is that if i order something the people that are working on it tell me exactly when they will finish and if they don't do their job as it was agreed i can demand refund or to get a discount. Wiht BL you can refund it only up to 2 hrs which is laughable amount of time and you can't be sure when and if they will finish it and how it will look. You pay full price for an empty promise that someone will do their job properly in some undefined future.
- not sure what this gibberish is supposed to mean, is it forbiden to complain anywhere? Especially if you pay for something and that thing is broken for you.

And again i dont care if the game works good for many ppl, it can work perfectly for 70%(for instance) of them but if it doesn't work for me and the other 30% it's broken. You don't decide by majority what's broken and what's not, for me and many more there are crashes and performance issues and the fact that you don't have them changes nothing.

Getting to complain is not a right. Thats what the 'gibberish' was. You can do it, by all means. And people are also free to share their opinions in a open forum.

If the game doesent launch for you you can probably refund it. Or you can wait till it is fixed. Given that each patch that they released so far has had multiple game crash fixes.

And how long the game has or has not beeing in development is irrelevant. When you bought the game you knew it was in EA. Complaining that it was in development for X years doesent change that.

 

[Wolfsblut]

Not sure what the complain was about.

EA shouldn't excuse anything ofc.
An unstable game that is crashing for more than half of the players shouldn't happen.
Close to zero content that leaves you with nothing to do after 2 hours of gameplay shouldn't happen.
Such a bad optimization that more than half of the players shouldn't happen.

I've saw all of this in the years since early access is around.

Bannerlord is completly fine for an early access title as it is now.
It could have been here 2 years ago, but well, you can't have all.

 

[Ggoddkkiller]

If Taleworlds lied about their game i could understand the outrage but in every single dev diary, interview and even on the store pages Taleworlds always stated that their game isn't completed yet and even recommended not buying their game during early access if you mind such issues too much rather wait for full release but even then you people bought the game and are complaining for only the sake of complaining i guess due every person on Earth knew there were issues even before the early access!! I don't know about you but i like honest companies like Taleworlds or CD Projekt etc and they should be supported as they will fix their game as they promised without any question, in fact often people complain about Bannerlord's development as it took so long and act like it kept delayed but in reality Taleworlds never ever announced a release date even once until they announced March 2020 and they released early access as they promised!! It is really impossible to understand some people especially while there are this kind of developers in the sector and several dozen ''full'' release games which were much much worse than early access Bannerlord...

 

[MBeagleguy]

@eminmetehan good post. Bethesda has been a very disappointing AAA developer. Yes they've gotten criticism, but when you compare the funds and manpower that Bethesda has compared to Taleworlds then there's no excuse for Bethesda.

The type of criticism Taleworlds have gotten has been unfair and short-sided.

 

[Aho]

Yes, EA is a valid excuse because it clearly states that the game is in a unfinished and unpolished state, you bought it because you wanted.

I know this but I think and come to the conclusion for months they were saying "polishing" "polishing" "polishing". What happened to those? I'm not trolling. Did they lie? What is this?

 

[Karl_Magnus]

Have you guys ever considered that maybe their team is just unexperienced and need more time than maybe other developers? If it's the case, would you be more mad? Less mad? Is it a good idea to be mad? Is it constructive to be whiny?

 

[Eidgeniesser]

Moderators please close this. OP was poorly thought out and the poster ruddered back instantly. More productive discussions can be had somewhere else.

StilL, on topic, it has been said before: EA is a game development status. Thats all that has to be said in my eyes.

 

[VanHoven]

the only thing i agree on is that for it's current state the price is kinda high. than again, i am certain it will be worth the full price in due time. early access games arnt meant to be feature complete and bug free and only get stuff on top in the future. some are, most are not. though in the last 2 weeks, especially with the 1.1 beta branch test, the game feels much, much better. maybe releasing it in this state would have meant less complaints, but really, why bother. they would have gotten so much flak for postponing the release again i think it was the right decision.

 

[Mrtvacina]

Why the **** you buy game if you dont wana... Its not full game relese... If you cant deal with it dont buy it... They are giving every day patch, what is fck rare to see.