Open Post: Armagan, We Could Use A Video Update Addressing Our Concerns

[kreamy]

TL : DR - The community truly wants to hear from you - the most recognizable and authoritative figure at TaleWorlds - what is going on?


Many of us have been here from the beginning, and have poured time & money towards supporting the Mount & Blade Series. Undoubtedly, you have done the same, and have built a great franchise and development team with a grand vision in mind.

Throughout the course of development of M&B II: Bannerlord - through EA, and going forward - it has and will continue to be a long journey for all the stakeholders involved. We're in this together!

However, there are many concerns about the 'direction' TaleWorlds is pursuing including; the axing of features, 'consolization', and a deeply-felt lack of direct communication to this very fine community*. Back in 2017 you took part in a Q&A for a devblog.

Its 2021 now, and the community truly wants to hear from you - the most recognizable and authoritative figure at TaleWorlds - what is going on?

Signed,
Lord Kreamy I


*with many notable exceptions of course

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I'll second that

 

[vonbalt]

i'll third that

 

[HugoTheFrenchMan]

I'll fourth that

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I'll FiF that

 

[Magello]

I'll sixth that

 

[froggyluv]

I'll fifth that

 

[babelfisch]

I'll whatever that.

 

[Highest of all Landers]

+1

 

[vonbalt]

I'll whatever that.

nothing is sacred these days, we had a tradition building here dude..

 

[Bloc]

Strange to expect a video from founder while even the Community Manager(s)/PR Manager(s) are ignoring the player base's requests and questions.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Strange to expect a video from founder while even the Community Manager(s)/PR Manager(s) are ignoring the player base's requests and questions.

Dejan is doing fine, what I really want is Armagan to come gives us his reasoning for rejecting so many ideas people think are essential. I'm sure there is some logical reasoning but we never get to know what it is. We just get "sorry this has been reject, maybe we'll think about it in the future" because the only one who knows the reason why it was rejected is Armagan (who refuses to come explain).

 

[9yearsago]

He speaks through his actions. What you see in the game development is what he thinks and he thinks that high end gear should not be available in shops.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

He speaks through his actions. What you see in the game development is what he thinks and he thinks that high end gear should not be available in shops.

lmao that was a bug and is fixed in 1.5.7 (pretty sure)

 

[9yearsago]

lmao that was a bug and is fixed in 1.5.7 (pretty sure)

Started a new save yesterday, still do not see a difference.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Started a new save yesterday, still do not see a difference.

They are still rare, https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...most-expensive-equipment.432198/#post-9624313

Back to on topic now.

 

[Bloc]

Dejan is doing fine, what I really want is Armagan to come gives us his reasoning for rejecting so many ideas people think are essential. I'm sure there is some logical reasoning but we never get to know what it is. We just get "sorry this has been reject, maybe we'll think about it in the future" because the only one who knows the reason why it was reject is Armagan.

Dejan is doing okayish yes. But this doesn't mean that TW is doing a good job in terms of CM. When you lost your arm, you can't patch it with a single bandaid. TW's CM was disastrous since from beginning and having one single guy that knows how to communicate with people won't fix that. I agree with you. For expected but declined features, we require reasoning. But Armagan doesn't need to explain anything since that's not his job. It's CM's job to communicate the bad and good news with the community. Is community asking for more explanation? Still CM's job.

Still Armagan might choose to explain it - but when you look at the forum and look at the state of the game after 1 year of EA, it's pretty much expected to see that you won't get a video or post from Armagan.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Dejan is doing okayish yes. But this doesn't mean that TW is doing a good job in terms of CM. When you lost your arm, you can't patch it with a single bandaid. TW's CM was disastrous since from beginning and having one single guy that knows how to communicate with people won't fix that. I agree with you. For expected but declined features, we require reasoning. But Armagan doesn't need to explain anything since that's not his job. It's CM's job to communicate the bad and good news with the community. Is community asking for more explanation? Still CM's job.

I agree with you. Honestly the excuse they use is that the CM's don't know the details about things so they can't explain and so they expect the devs to come explain but its not their job/language barrier. So we've ended up with nothing (with a few exceptions, campaign and UI teams).

Still Armagan might choose to explain it - but when you look at the forum and look at the state of the game after 1 year of EA, it's pretty much expected to see that you won't get a video or post from Armagan.

I don't expect anything anymore from him, it is just massively dissappointing because he was here during MP beta and it made a huge difference. We literally have a completely different blocking system than what they wanted because Armagan came and discussed with us and eventually listened and reverted it. These discussions is what I want and expected going into EA, instead we got 9 months of silence.


@froggyluv thanks for the chuckle

 

[Bloc]

I agree with you. Honestly the excuse they use is that the CM's don't know the details about things so they can't explain and so they expect the devs to come explain but its not their job/language barrier. So we've ended up with nothing (with a few exceptions, campaign and UI teams).

Yes, as an example, mexxico is more CM than other CM(s) in the company. Because at least he is not acting like a chatbot that is saying yes, no, rejected but actually trying to explain why those features are rejected. Although, I'm fairly sure that in some cases he wasn't even allowed to say some things but since no proper official is checking the forums, I guess he is safe to say whatever he wants to say.

I don't expect anything anymore from him, it is just massively dissappointing because he was here during MP beta and it made a huge difference. We literally have a completely different blocking system than what they wanted because Armagan came and discussed with us and eventually listened and reverted it. These discussions is what I want and expected going into EA, instead we got 9 months of silence.

Agreed to some, but disagreed to some as well. There is a reason why development lasted 8 years (and still ongoing actually)
Armagan is a wrecking ball. Make a plan, work on that 2 months, then if Armagan is convinced to do something else( or even improvement), you can say bye bye to that 2 months of work. Small tweaks are okay - since they don't mess up codebase. But other changes can turn codebase into big mess instantly - causing huge setbacks and testing issues. And we are seeing that mess in codebase already. No pattern, no proper architecture, hell of a dirtyhacks all over the place and so on. Plus 50% people working in the company don't give a damn about the game as well. You can't see that type of behaviour in other companies - because they have a choice. They can hire people who are excited to work on the game. Taleworlds don't have that luxury. Turkey isn't the rising star of the Gaming Industry. You can't be too picky if you need people to code something. And when devs don't care, when setbacks happen, no one is doing extra work ( or even extra thinking about edge cases or possible effects on gameplay ) and this leads lame gameplay features or bugs.

So the question is: do you want to wait another 3 years for several more features - or do you want to see it released as soon as possible and play with MP/SP mods? Well the company is choosing the second option because they don't have chips to play that gamble anymore. That's the reason why they went with EA as well. Because they got more chips to waste. Still doing the same as you can see - taking their time, chilling. Next year possibly we will see the release. It won't be `full game` in the eyes of many. But this isn't an issue for TW. Because as I mentioned, half of the team don't care anyway. And for overall, management, as long as they hit their planned numbers, it's all fine.

 

[Stromming]

But this isn't an issue for TW. Because as I mentioned, half of the team don't care anyway. And for overall, management, as long as they hit their planned numbers, it's all fine.

And this is a terrible way to do business. It's like CD Projekt Red all over again.

> best game dev ever
> huge amount of pre-orders
> big disappointment to hardcore fans
> huge lashback
> fans lose faith in studio
> studio makes some PR statements that could go bad or good (regain some fans or lose even more)
> less pre-orders / sales in next title