This was a hot topic when we found this out in alpha mate. Despite the pleas of the dedicated multiplayer community, it was scrapped in favour of what you see now. In fact, most of the suggestions made by the Warband multiplayer player-base were ignored which probably sewed the seeds of failure for that aspect of the game. The multiplayer might survive, but if you played Warband and mastered the combat system, Bannerlord is a devolution.