Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Developer Blog 12 - The Passage Of Time

Hello Bannerlord blog regulars and newcomers. In this entry, we are once again responding to your demands to hear more about single player gameplay - specifically, looking at the overworld map and some of the improvements made there. We revealed the map at Gamescom and mentioned some new features in the last blog. Here, we'll take what we've revealed and go into some more detail.

Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/14

 

[DanAngleland]

M&B was available to download and play for free until your character reached level 7 from about 2005, when it was still quite early in development. There were patches at irregular intervals every few months (sometimes close to a year between patches if I remember rightly). You could pay a small price to unlock full access to the beta (being able to level your character past level 7); the price periodically increased I think over the years until release of version 1.0. I think it was about £10 when I bought it in 2007, for example.

For Warband, I believe the multiplayer beta began about a year before release of 1.0. At first it was a limited number of people, but with about 3 or more months to go before release multiplayer beta was opened to everyone. That's when I got in. The singleplayer beta was limited to a smaller pool of players right up until release I think; I can't remember if it lasted as long as multi beta but I think it began much closer to release. I only entered the multi beta. There was no payment to get into Warband beta, but I think you probably had to have an M&B serial key.

 

[Wild Card]

The reason i`m asking is that if they keep in line with this there might be a closed beta this year (maybe heppening right now) or even an open beta further down the line.
Since warband does have a multiplayer scene and probably so will bannerlord it stands to reason that they`ll do at least a multiplayer beta to get ppl in bug test it to hell and back address issues of balance and so on and so forth.
And with the relese being "sometime in 2016" these things could be happening shortly

 

[SenorZorros]

I kind of hope though that if they do a public beta, they would keep it limited and free. they should have enough people to do the testing themselves and I have been getting a bit sick of seeing all the early access problems the past years. I would personally even prepare to just be able to pick up the game at release. or at least after the reviews came out... or maybe once it is in a steam sale (I'm a poor student).

 

[The Bowman]

I kind of hope though that if they do a public beta, they would keep it limited and free. they should have enough people to do the testing themselves and I have been getting a bit sick of seeing all the early access problems the past years. I would personally even prepare to just be able to pick up the game at release. or at least after the reviews came out... or maybe once it is in a steam sale (I'm a poor student).

TW will most likely go with the closed beta model, like they did with Warband. Basically, you just send a message to a developer, which in turn accepts you into the program.

 

[rammler1991]

The question is when does the beta come out? When bannerlord is going to be released in 2016 the game should definitely not be in the alpha anymore. But TW said nothing about the the beta so far.
So maybe the game is far away from release and it will take months for a testversion or a beta or a beta is not planned  at all

 

[LonelyStep]

The question is when does the beta come out? When bannerlord is going to be released in 2016 the game should definitely not be in the alpha anymore. But TW said nothing about the the beta so far.
So maybe the game is far away from release and it will take months for a testversion or a beta or a beta is not planned  at all

Gotta wait until March. Hopefully in the PC Gamer Bunker they give us a roadmap to launch, but if not we still should have a better feel for how far along things are.

 

[Wild Card]

But TW said nothing about the the beta so far.

They could have a closed beta (many games have it) the participants sign a NDA (non disclosure agreement). So in theory it could be happening right now !

 

[MrMundy]

I honestly would think that Taleworlds would have said something about that. Simply becouse they know how much their community, we, are in the Hype-Culture and that we would start throwing money at them.

 

[Duseda]

I would love to test the new editor, the old one was not so difficult but time costly 

 

[peenerz]

Completely off topic but Idk where else to post this...
But does anyone else want to see some sort of East Asian faction in Bannerlord? Possibly more? Maybe one based of China, one off Japan, and one off Siam? Possibly India too but I feel just one faction is already asking for a lot

 

[Stromming]

Completely off topic but Idk where else to post this...
But does anyone else want to see some sort of East Asian faction in Bannerlord? Possibly more? Maybe one based of China, one off Japan, and one off Siam? Possibly India too but I feel just one faction is already asking for a lot

I think there is some Khergit similar faction mentioned already, and that would definitely classify as East Asian I believe.

 

[SenorZorros]

you can't really say that Mongolian is the same as far eastern. there are large differences in these civilizations on almost all fields including but not limited to politics, economy, arts and crafts and society.
in the matter of a far eastern civilization, I'd prefer not. in my opinion it does not add a lot of additional options. I find the mount and blade factions quite similar anyway. all they really are is a colour to ensure that calradia won't be boring. off course the areas are different but after a couple of years of back-stabbing and land-switching the nations can completely change. therefore adding a oriental faction has few benefits.

off course I and I think a lot of people would like to see the factions get a bit more identity than the culture of the troops the faction leader* recruits. however even if this was to be I think a far eastern culture does not fit. in reality before the renaissance the far east and Europe never had any contact. off course the silk route existed but most traders traded around a small piece of the road. it is like a wave in the sea. the wave travels but all the water does is moving back and forth. therefore it is not historically accurate to have this faction in the game. off course Calradia is a fictitious land but to me it is obvious that it is eastern Europe and the bordering states by any other name.

another point is that the technological and societal differences were massive and if they were modeled realistically the game would probably look a bit janky. 15th century Japanese swords are for instance inferior to viking age ones. sadly I do not know a lot about the Chinese, Korean and south Asian societies.





*after all, all of his vassals have deserted and rejoined a couple of times. 

 

[hiul]

nah japanese sword is just made of pig iron bad quality and it never change only the method to make them as ok metal just wibu propaganda thinking katana is the best in the world, and considering each faction already have massive different technology and society anyway, i can see korea using naval base like making that turtle ship that if bannerlord have naval battle and rocket arrow and siege engine from china and war elephant from india adding some of this atleast will help khergit ancestor in siege warfare

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

well that was a disaster of a post.

 

[SenorZorros]

nah japanese sword is just made of pig iron bad quality and it never change only the method to make them as ok metal just wibu propaganda thinking katana is the best in the world, and considering each faction already have massive different technology and society anyway, i can see korea using naval base like making that turtle ship that if bannerlord have naval battle and rocket arrow and siege engine from china and war elephant from india adding some of this atleast will help khergit ancestor in siege warfare

1. swords... yeah... I said that
2. turtle ships... you may be 400 to 600 years to late...
3. differences... please give me a difference in technology found it the game...

also, the kerghit ancestor should probably not be that good in siege warfare. I would however like to see the ability to use horse archers to scale the walls during sieges. also, they could just built an onager.

 

[hiul]

ah my bad i miss read inferior to superior  the rest is just my wishfull thinking beside this game have viking in warband era
their preferences weapon and equipment already different its still considered as technology
khergit need love  , they always suck in both field and siege well the field is a bit ok, yeah it  can be good if cavalry unit still have their horse in siege that if bannerlord siege engine able to break wall if not, riding horse become useless in siege.

 

[MrMundy]

Katanas wouldn't make sence when they have acces to higher Quality Swords. The Katana was just used in Japan for so long due to its self-isolation.

 

[SenorZorros]

ah my bad i miss read inferior to superior  the rest is just my wishfull thinking beside this game have viking in warband era
their preferences weapon and equipment already different its still considered as technology
khergit need love  , they always suck in both field and siege well the field is a bit ok, yeah it  can be good if cavalry unit still have their horse in siege that if bannerlord siege engine able to break wall if not, riding horse become useless in siege.

on the vikings: in the middle ages the kindoms of danmark and sweden were maybe less prominent but still quite Scandinavian and fairly significant.

on the kerghits:
weren't the kerghits the masters of the field? they ruin most infantry. if they have problems in game it is probably the ai sucking.
however, I can agree they might benefit from some siege technology. maybe it would be interesting if the pre-kerghit would be able to recruit engineers which are able to construct siege weaponry in the field. this would allow for great mobility without sacrificing siege power. also, if you look at the mongols this is historically accurate.

on technology in troop variance: this does not really work after some time with all the switching of the lords. you can easily see a lord of every culture in the same (computer) faction. I think it is interesting if the cultures also have economical or technological differences. something like the khuzait getting more profits from villages but less from towns.



also, does anyone know if horse archers scaling walls is historically accurate? I couldn't find anything about it.

 

[The Meddling Monk]

also, does anyone know if horse archers scaling walls is historically accurate? I couldn't find anything about it.

I found this.  I am not sure how accurate it is, but it talks about them hiring Chinese and Middle-Eastern engineers for operating siege equipment, and also mentions them using flaming arrows and fire bombs (naphtha).

Edit: After some more checking, I found out that the Mongols did in fact use Chinese and Middle-Eastern engineers.  So maybe in Bannerlord you could hire mercenary engineers to help you in sieges.
(That is, if they want the Khuzaits to be like the Mongols.)

 

[hiul]

nah even their heavy cavalry is weaker than swadian and mamluke unhorsed its still fine if you are the one that lead it and the only good is they get horse earlier, their arrow shooting is not that strong either, yeah thats why i mention it ,because mongol empire not consist only mongolian horse archer so its still have chance to represent eastern culture or warfare, only just maybe add some war elephant or turtle ship for end tier this two is indeed out of historical fact for mongol just wishful thinking for helping weak khergit the other may can counter it using greek fire or something

i kinda don't get what you mean with horse archer scaling wall do you mean they scale the wall together with their horse or something? or just normal climbing scaling?