No, Bannerlord is not a grift. It has potential to be ultimate medieval strategy&rpg game.

[epil]

Some players think this game is a grift due to the lack of content at the moment (edit). I also agree Bannerlord is missing a lot of potential content but I think the developers have building a very solid and dynamic base game. Though there is lack of content at the moment, Bannerlord's systemic mechanics make it suitable for adding incredibly various content to the base game in future.

This was not the case with Warband since it's mechanics were very outdated and clunky. Modding or adding content to Warband was not an easy task. I think this is the most important aspect of the Bannerlord, which people will realize importance of it couple years later. Game will be content bombed by developers and modders, immersive breaking and unbalanced things will be resolved. This game has potential to be best medieval strategy game with very strong and immersive role playing elements for this decade if developers make the right choices.

There is criticism this game is a cash grab and developers don't care about the state of game or don't have vision to make it better. I don't think developers are out of vision for this game content-wise. They're developing things like "Battle Terrain System" which requires a lot of work and will add so much immersion to battles but if they never introduced that content, player base wouldn't even be mad or bothered. This content, despite being hard to develop, wasn't promised before release so they didn't have to bother developing it but they're doing it. I think this shows they have adequate vision and will to make this game immersive.

Also there is criticism about development being very slow. I agree with that criticism. I don't know whats going on behind the scenes but they could add much more content and balance much more things in last 1 years. Proof of this is the modders. Mods which are developed by couple of people added much more content to the game compared to multi-million dollar company. They didn't even introduced banners to the battles or sieges yet, which is not convenient for a game titled BANNERlord. (edit, conclusion:) But I think they have content being prepared behind the scenes. Lack of content in patches must not mean they're not on the development of any content since they already show screenshots of some. This game is a not grift or cash grab, it's buildup is solid. We will see if developers will be able to fulfill the potential of this game in future. I believe they have vision and means to do so.

edit:
A lot of people are pointing out there is (or was) indeed a potential but Taleworlds won't be able to realise it because of their lack of will and competence. Of course there is a possibility that Taleworlds is not going to fulfill potential of this game in future due to their lack of interest, laziness or incompetence. Though I believe the opposite since I think most important thing about Bannerlord is base buildup and they did a great job about that. This game feels like empty-shell content-wise right now but it's solid base game will enable developers to add variety content easily in future.

Game mechanics already presents most of the elements needed for creating Contents like feasts, immersive tournaments, dialogues, siege missions, kingdom diplomacy, dynamic events and schemes etc. It's not a Cyberpunk case, there won't be development from scratch needed for those features to be realized. Multi-billion $ company like CDPR cannot make a good game out of Cyberpunk right now because it's mechanics are inherently nightmarish and any extra content must be created mostly from beginning. So I think Taleworlds already handled the most important part by developing a solid base game, now they're focusing on stabilizing it. Adding content and making it immersive is matter of time if they don't give up on this game pre and post release.

 

[five bucks]

I don't actually think Bannerlord is a scam overall (just very disorganized, and possibly lying about owning alleys) but I do take issue with your title.
"Potential" is exactly how 90% of scams, especially Early Access games, work. "Wow look at the potential in this game! I have to buy it!"
Just because something has potential doesn't mean it will necessarily be realized.

Also sure, modders can fix the game to an extent. But that shouldn't be their job at all- their job should be expanding the game-, and the more we have to rely on modders to make the game good, the more crashes and unupdated mods we have to deal with. The "modders will fix it" mentality is flawed for these reasons.

 

[epil]

I don't actually think Bannerlord is a scam overall (just very disorganized, and possibly lying about owning alleys) but I do take issue with your title.
"Potential" is exactly how 90% of scams, especially Early Access games, work. "Wow look at the potential in this game! I have to buy it!"
Just because something has potential doesn't mean it will necessarily be realized.

Also sure, modders can fix the game to an extent and make up for missing content. But that shouldn't be their job at all- their job should be expanding the game-, and the more we have to rely on modders to make the game good, the more crashes and unupdated mods we have to deal with. The "modders will fix it" mentality is flawed for these reasons.

I agree with you. As I said this game has potential to be great if "developers make the right choices." If developers abandon this game to be fixed by modders, it would be trash move and would make people feel like it's a scam. But I don't think developers are completely wrong path at developing this game. They already developed a nice base game which makes it easy to add more contents swiftly. All they have to do is now make campaign more stable and content bomb the game to fill voidness. Then release the adequate modding tools for modders to make this game more amazing.

 

[Hexnibbler]

I'm also very cautious about "potential" rhetorics and early access.
I'm also cautious when a development team uses the idea that their game can be modded as a selling point.
In most cases, what they call "moddable" is a few xml files and nearly 0 access to the critical game logic.
This is because they design "moddability" as a late skinny feature rather than as the structure of the product.

It's simply a fact that bannerlord is a game that is designed to be modded. There were efforts and energy put into this, and it is not trivial.
It's also invisible to the playerbase because of the ongoing development status that "breaks" mods and push back the benefits of this work.

It can be argued that it's not the modders's job to "add content" and "fix stuff", but I'll take a deeply moddable game with less content and balance over a shallow moddable game with more content and balance anyday simply because at the end of the line the value of the product will include the value of the mods which makes the independance of the community from the industry commercial logic.
The studio gets money from its success, the playerbase gets its balance, content from the base game + modders works, and the modders gets their hands on a fairly well structured project that allow them to focus on the creative and fun part of video game creation without having to do the "annoying" work that justify a salary.

 

[jisiting2960]

我实际上并不认为 Bannerlord 总体上是一个骗局（只是非常混乱，并且可能在拥有小巷的问题上撒谎），但我确实对你的头衔有异议。
“潜力”正是 90% 的骗局，尤其是抢先体验游戏的运作方式。“哇，看看这个游戏的潜力！我必须买它！”
仅仅因为某事具有潜力并不意味着它一定会被实现。

同样可以肯定的是，模组制作者可以在一定程度上修复游戏。但这根本不应该是他们的工作——他们的工作应该是扩展游戏——而且我们越是依赖模组制作者来制作游戏，我们必须处理的崩溃和未更新的模组就越多。由于这些原因，“修改器会修复它”的心态是有缺陷的。

+11111111111111111111111

 

[Poddicus]

And you had to make an entirely new thread about this instead of just commenting on the thread this title is obviously referring to, why?

This game has potential to be best medieval strategy game with very strong and immersive role playing elements for this decade if developers make the right choices.

They're not making the right choices though. It has potential, sure, but that can be said for literally any game currently being worked on. Literally not a shred of evidence to guarantee it'll be any of those things when its finished. (Unmodded)

There is criticism this game is a cash grab and developers don't care about the state of game or don't have vision to make it better. I don't think developers are out of vision for this game content-wise. They're developing things like "Battle Terrain System" which requires a lot of work and will add so much immersion to battles but if they never introduced that content, player base wouldn't even be mad or bothered. This content, despite being hard to develop, wasn't promised before release so they didn't have to bother developing it but they're doing it. I think this shows they have adequate vision and will to make this game immersive.

Oh okay so its cool for them to go back on several things that were promised in far more depth before the EA because in return we get an unnecessary alternative to a map system which takes way more work than what would be needed, which no one asked for. There's obviously very little care given to 'immersion' seeing as battles & fighting is the only thing that there is to do. Even getting married literally boils down to "succeed a couple times in this half arsed persuasion system knock-off, pay off her dad and you're insta wed"
I do hope the Battle Terrain System is good, though

You keep mentioning how the game is gonna be good because it'll be carried by mods, in which case what's the point in even bothering with developing the rest of the game. If you have to rely on mods to have a non-shallow asf experience with the game, it really says a lot.

A lot of the frustration isn't because "lack of content, make the game faster" Its the fact that there have been several mentions by devs on the forums that a lot of features (such as more in depth diplomacy I think was one, giving your parties specific orders was another) have been outright refused by the upper management. Things that were mentioned in the promotional presentations pre-EA and things that were in the previous games too.

It all just gives off the feeling that those making these design decisions aren't in touch with the playerbase, hence the backlash.

 

[Mad Vader]

Trust the plan!

-deleted-

#999 is one of the better ones, he didn't say "it's only early access, anything goes". He has potential, just like Bannerlord.

 

[moof]

yes, the potential to make some more lighting adjustments and rebalancing troop stats indefinitely

 

[Meshkinas]

A game like Mount & Blade has a potential of becoming one of the ultimate types of games. Blending 3rd person RPG and RTS like this isn't something I've seen elsewhere, and if it was given enough depth, it could easily surpass the likes of Witcher III and Total War, both of which are just parts of the whole, that would make up this.

However, for that to be truth, A LOT would have to be added to this game:

Spoiler

• More detailed politics:
  • Alliances: trade, military, marriage, temporary truce to curb power of another realm, etc;
  • Realm splits: rebellions, death of a ruler and resulting power vacuum, civil wars, betrayals, lands sold to other realms, etc;
  • Covert ops: secret alliances between monarchs, bribes, assassinations/kidnappings of nobles/prominent figures, betrayals, etc;
  • Ability to start and end wars by assassinating the king.
  • Ability to force a realm or fortress to surrender:
    • Kidnap a member of royal family (or other prominent figure) to force a ruler to submit;
    • Starve a fortress by cutting off their supply lines and exits;
    • Cripple a realm's economy by cutting off it's supply lines, sabotaging caravans, convincing other realms not to trade;
    • Destroy a king's reputation among the populace;
  • etc.
• More detailed real-time strategy:
  • Proper pre-battle troops deployment with an option to get an overhead view;
  • Ability to choose which troops, in particular, to include in the battle (if there's a limit to how many you can include);
  • Ability to tell different parts of your troops, or even specific ones, exactly which targets to attack and which ones to ignore;
  • Ability to get into overhead view (pause screen) at any point of the battle and order your troops around (commands will be carried out once battle is unpaused);
  • etc.
• More detailed courtship:
  • NPC nobles with actual ambitions and sense of competition;
  • Ability to distinguish yourself (on battlefield, in trade, in strategy mind) and prove yourself more worthy than some NPC for some position (marshal, king, some noble title, a friend, a lover, etc.);
  • NPCs holding grudges, that may take them as far as betray their realm and hunt you down with another army, or go after your friends/family;
  • Bold NPCs unafraid to insult you, or your family, publicly. Your reaction will decide what the other NPCs think of you;
  • Ability for NPCs and players alike to hit on another's wife;
  • NPCs can even wage wars due to love afairs (love triangles, cheating, desire to impress a sadistic lady, etc);
  • Friend NPCs abandoning their duties to come to your aid, when you are in need of it (depends on personality);
  • Friend NPCs that helped you, but abandoned their duties, facing punishment. You can either try to save their skin, or abandon them. Both could have dire ramifications for your standing in the realm.
  • etc.
• More detailed 3rd person combat (individual):
  • Look no further than For Honor game.
• More detailed field combat:
  • Properly working formations;
  • Properly working spears;
  • Properly working cavalry;
  • Archers not being OP;
  • Ability to use terrain to your advantage:
    • Fall trees/rocks/build barricades to interfere with cavalry charges;
    • Drive enemy forces into a chokepoint when outnumbered.

With the exception of For Honor level 3rd person combat, I expected all of these in Bannerlord.

I'm also cautious when a development team uses the idea that their game can be modded as a selling point.

Not trying to insult modders (I've no doubt they are talented individuals), but...
Mods are just small fan-service additions to tweak a few things in a game. Nothing more can be expected from them. They aren't getting paid for this, their abilities to mod are limited (companies don't just hand out entire source code) and you cannot expect long-term support.

A game has to work without mods. If it doesn't, mods won't fix it.

 

[Butterflies-In-My_belly]

Some players think that the game is bad and underwhelming due to the lack of content at the moment. I also agree Bannerlord is missing a lot of potential content but I think the developers have building a very solid and dynamic base game. Though there is lack of content at the moment, Bannerlord's systemic mechanics make it suitable for adding incredibly various content to the base game in future.

This was not the case with Warband since it's mechanics were very outdated and clunky. Modding or adding content to Warband was not an easy task. I think this is the most important aspect of the Bannerlord, which people will realize importance of it couple years later. Game will be content bombed by developers and modders, immersive breaking and unbalanced things will be resolved. This game has potential to be best medieval strategy game with very strong and immersive role playing elements for this decade if developers make the right choices.

There is criticism this game is a cash grab and developers don't care about the state of game or don't have vision to make it better. I don't think developers are out of vision for this game content-wise. They're developing things like "Battle Terrain System" which requires a lot of work and will add so much immersion to battles but if they never introduced that content, player base wouldn't even be mad or bothered. This content, despite being hard to develop, wasn't promised before release so they didn't have to bother developing it but they're doing it. I think this shows they have adequate vision and will to make this game immersive.

Also there is criticism about development being very slow. I agree with that criticism. I don't know whats going on behind the scenes but they could add much more content and balance much more things in last 1 years. Proof of this is the modders. Mods which are developed by couple of people added much more content to the game compared to multi-million dollar company. They didn't even introduced banners to the battles or sieges yet, which is not convenient for a game titled BANNERlord. But I think they have a lot of content being prepared behind the scenes. We know for sure that they already developed contents like banners in 2017 but they're not releasing them yet. That means they have actual content getting ready behind the scenes, maybe release time getting extended because of polishing reasons, therefore lack of content in patches must not mean they're not on the development of any content.

I agree with your post.
Bannerlord is already a good game and NO it's not a cash-grab. The Devs are still working on it and will be working on it until full release, which is now in 2022. I'm happy they're taking their time to release it, just that shows it's not a cash-grab.
Yes it's lacking a few things but they will be added on later just like the things that were missing when the game got released on EA were added.
I'm happy that Taleworlds didn't give up on releasing a newer instance of M&B and if they had, all those who criticize the game now would be begging for a new M&B game.

 

[MostBlunted]

I also had the potential to be the ultimate footballer player but then I started drinking and smoking.

 

[Rungsted93]

It's not really fair to compare M&B/Warband with Bannerlord though.
M&B and Warband was made with close to no budget by only 2 people (later I think they were like 8-10 for Warband), it was a different time as well and it was also a fresh new formula not really seen before.

For Bannerlord they already had the formula, they knew what worked and even had succesful mods and DLC's to draw popular features from. Oh and the budget and manpower were atleast 10 times as high + they've worked on it for close to 10 years as well.

Now I agree with you Bannerlord has huge potential! and if TW came out and said "listen guys, we want to make this game the very best it can be and it'll probably take 3-4 more years for it to become that." I think everyone would be patient and understanding, but instead I often get the impression that they kind of just want to wrap things up even if that means taking some shortcuts. I also want to point out I think they have some really talented and dedicated people hired there, but it's the project management which is run like TW was Microsoft with all sorts of odd processes and having to discuss ROI of even the most minor changes.

If we need to be a bit more realistic we must also understand that from TW's leadership this game is a huge succes, they've sold millions of copies and they have a 87%+ positive score on Steam. At the end of the game a few dissapointed fans in their forum is just a loud minority they don't really care that much about as they're not the community managers/developers writing in here. This is not something which is unique to TW in any shape or form and it's sadly just how most companies are run today.

 

[Meshkinas]

At the end of the game a few dissapointed fans in their forum is just a loud minority they don't really care that much about as they're not the community managers/developers writing in here.

Yes, the ones posting are minority. But the forums are available to everyone and countless people, registered and unregistered, go over them daily. A hell of a lot more people see these opinions, than just the ones commenting or posting here.

 

[julijs]

oh jesus christ, enough about the "potential" already.. if you're gonna make threads with point of arguing other thread titles, then please for the love of god actually read the thread and not make an assumption based on first glance.

out of touch and not true, also heard it a million times already.

 

[danEN]

But I think they have a lot of content being prepared behind the scenes.

oh buddy so young so innocent so hopeful

1 year ago:

The biggest hope is that they've been working on the bigger content and are releasing it towards the end of EA.

The sooner you realise this company is so ****ing poorly run the quicker you'll realise there's no chance in hell they have content enough to make this game not absolute dog ****

 

[[Rei]]

It has potential to be ultimate medieval strategy&rpg game.​

It had, back in 2015 :^)

 

[Hexnibbler]

[...]
Not trying to insult modders (I've no doubt they are talented individuals), but...
Mods are just small fan-service additions to tweak a few things in a game. Nothing more can be expected from them. They aren't getting paid for this, their abilities to mod are limited (companies don't just hand out entire source code) and you cannot expect long-term support.

A game has to work without mods. If it doesn't, mods won't fix it.

True for games I talked about in the beginning of my post. At the end of the day what modders can or cannot do depends on how the game is organized "inside" and bannerlord is very easy to modify, and extensively modifiable (it's not a sets of xml files. its core game logic).

As for the general scope of what modders can do : remembers that counter-strike and dota were "mods".

 

[Askorti]

Oh, how cute. Just like everyone else, you will eventually learn that your hopes and dreams are going to be mercilessly dashed and crushed.
One thing that many a star-eyed recruit does not realize, that most of the jaded people who have been here for far longer used to be just like you, once upon a time... But then they learned over months and years of disappointment that their expectations will never be met.
Sooner or later you will join them or disappear. TW has no mercy and it takes no prisoners. It turns all, willing or not.

 

[Ser Jon]

Except that it is a grift. Promising one thing and not delivering on it with a decade of development behind the game exactly spells that out.

 

[Lazregamesh]

I agree!
Glad to see more hopeful people
Personally i like the game as it is. Sure it can be much better, but it is really good already. In it is current state it has mods that are simply wonderful (Added towns, mechanics,quests,...) When it is stable and fully released, i can see wonders modding wise already.
I think they are doing a great job. I want them to deliver what they promised to stay clean.
We bought the game this early to support them and keep them working, i hope they see it that way.
We have to trust in their artistic vision and adapt to any changes. I am sure the rest can be modded. I want this game to succeed and i want this team to keep creating games.
I am choosing the path of optimism and constructive contribution, others express their support in forms of negative reinforcement. I am glad to see so many people care and i am so happy bannerlord released a playable form while i am alive
Cheers and keep your head up! The best is yet to come