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Opinion about developer blogs
- Thread starter AJIexander
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This is not nonsense, but statistics. I like some blogs. When I and my friends read them, it gives the impression that there is still 3 years left before the release ... And this is not good.Rabies said:
Fans of Warband find it hard to wait patiently for Bannerlord. The blogs can and have provided focal points for discussions, which provide valuable player feedback to Taleworlds and engage the community. However, each blog’s level of success depends on the following:
1. Expectations - player expectations expand in any vacuum. These were better managed where blogs were trailed. Please tell us the theme of next week’s blog at the end of each current one.
2. Engagement - asking for questions in advance of developer interviews worked well. It didn’t matter that only one or two points were answered - they sparked debate, provided better feedback on player preferences and helped to manage expectations. Please always ask for player questions even if the blog is not an interview - you can choose which answer(s) add to your blog’s content.
3. Impact - every picture/gif tells a story. Visuals are vital. Unfortunately, the weapon pictures in the two recent blogs were flat logos taken out if game context, so they lacked all the shader/lighting effects/magic that enhance them in game. Please always include at least one in game picture.
4. Crumbs - yes, we are desperate for any crumbs of information about the game, its mechanics and its mod-ability. Throw us something that sparks debate and generates feedback. For example, even if Armagan has ruled out flails and slings from a professional release for good reasons (uncontrollable clipping, inability to determine what part of the weapon, if any, impacts hitboxes etc.), tell us how modders with lower standards could hack the new physics systems to produce clunky versions for those mad enough to install them. It might even distract a few monsters from chewing on release dates.
1. Expectations - player expectations expand in any vacuum. These were better managed where blogs were trailed. Please tell us the theme of next week’s blog at the end of each current one.
2. Engagement - asking for questions in advance of developer interviews worked well. It didn’t matter that only one or two points were answered - they sparked debate, provided better feedback on player preferences and helped to manage expectations. Please always ask for player questions even if the blog is not an interview - you can choose which answer(s) add to your blog’s content.
3. Impact - every picture/gif tells a story. Visuals are vital. Unfortunately, the weapon pictures in the two recent blogs were flat logos taken out if game context, so they lacked all the shader/lighting effects/magic that enhance them in game. Please always include at least one in game picture.
4. Crumbs - yes, we are desperate for any crumbs of information about the game, its mechanics and its mod-ability. Throw us something that sparks debate and generates feedback. For example, even if Armagan has ruled out flails and slings from a professional release for good reasons (uncontrollable clipping, inability to determine what part of the weapon, if any, impacts hitboxes etc.), tell us how modders with lower standards could hack the new physics systems to produce clunky versions for those mad enough to install them. It might even distract a few monsters from chewing on release dates.
Rabies said:
Literally the only "bull**** whinging" going on around here are people like you calling justified complaints about development and communication "bull**** whinging". To act in such a manner is hypocritical. To see what you consider to be "bull**** whinging" about something and then say it's bad and then proceed to act in exactly the same manner is an utter failure of reasoned thinking.
In response to the rest of the apologist drivel of a reply; you're apparently ignorant of the situation surrounding development of this game. People get upset at this sort of thing because they've been strung along for approaching 3 years now in regards to this game, it's development and the so far unresolved release date issue (and yes it is an issue). Many of us who've been following development closely for 6 ****ing years now have invested quite some time and emotion into it and with very few exceptions have been given one disappointing half-assed excuse after another, have run out of all patience. The actual content of the last two blogs is mostly irrelevant, what it signifies is what matters.
The arguments on this topic in the forums is reminding me of the disconnect between members of the No Man's Sky playerbase after release. The two groups were the "the game's not that good but why are you getting so upset" side of the playerbase, and the "we were lied to, mislead and the game is nothing that was promised" side. The former side, of which I was apart in the beginning, could not understand why the latter side was so upset, the game wasn't very good, everyone could agree on that, but their position was one of ignorance. After I stopped playing, I took the time to go back and watch videos of the developers, read statements and get an idea of what product they were attempting to sell before it was released, and yes, the people I didn't understand that were engaging in "bull**** whinging" were totally in the right. They were lied to, mislead and the final product they and I got was absolutely nothing that was stated it would be. Just because you appeared at the last moment and don't see what the issue other people have is, doesn't mean that it's bull****, rather that the most likely thing is you being ignorant of the continuing issues surrounding it all.
Think for a moment and tell me why the barest scraps of information that made up the last two blogs were split up and macerated into two entirely separate posts? And to make matters worse not only did the blogs contain nothing, whoever wrote it thought it would be funny to not only fill the dev blogs with 1/5 filler nonsense like stones, but poke fun at the fact that they have such little information to give out. For many of us that's unacceptable. Had this been done 3 years ago when we actually started to see the game in a functional aspect it likely wouldn't have been a problem, but since then there has been delay after mistake after lie on the entire process, none of which has been properly addressed, TaleWorlds continues to make the same poor decisions and bull**** excuses.
e.g: like investing 4+ months of the coders efforts into rewriting the entire lighting engine last year. What was the point of doing this mid development? Such things are literally superficial. They had a functioning and totally acceptable lighting system, if they didn't like it, fair enough. They should have slated a re-coding of the lighting system after the game was in a playable state at the very end of development, it's not like the existing lighting system didn't work, we saw it and it did. Instead they decided to place non-core element reworks as a priority over actual gamelay development, and where are we now? It's been a year and a half since the first "we're hoping to get the game to the players by the end of the year" comment and 10 months since the last "we're just putting the finishing touches on now" comment, and where are we after all of that bull**** years later, after all of this time, effort and emotion invested in this game:
"STONES, haha get rekt idiots no real dev blog for you"
Ultimately all this information being released in the manner it is angers me and thus creates what you would call "bull**** whinging" because it tells me, based upon what I've come to expect from TaleWorlds, that their development process has been delayed a significant amount, again(and believe me, nothing would make me happier than to be wrong). Getting strung around like a fool on something I'm very interested in for years on end tends to make me upset, and complaining about it here is the best thing to do. You acting like an apologist and critisizing me for a justified response on the other hand does absolutely nothing except get me to deconstruct your nonsense in a time-consuming manner, which if that was your goal, congratulations you succeeded.
Sundeki said:
I would love the game to have been completed last year as well. However, think about it from TW’s perspective. They’re not making a game, they are trying to make a game engine/system/platform that will support a number of games over the next decade. That requires some future proofing even though the graphical expectations of most Warband fans are far from extreme.
I don’t believe they lied to us - what they wanted and expected was derailed. In real life these things happen. Given the microscopic dissection each TW communication is subjected to, it’s hardly surprising that they chose to appologise without going into a detailed explanation. Who wants to wash their dirty linen in public?
I applaud you standing!Sundeki said:
NPC99 said:
Like I said, I'm not saying they shouldn't make such changes, only that those changes are superficial and should be made once all of the other non-dependent systems (the lighting systems act independent of the rest of the game/gameplay in almost every aspect). Lopping it in right in the middle of development makes no sense, such things can be accomplished during a QA/betatesting time period, allowing time to be saved in the development process and get the game out to the players sooner without any loss in quality or time.
And considering that they wrote the entire engine themselves, the "engine/system/platform" they hope to make will need to be updated with each new game/IP/installment anyway, so attempting to future proof something in which said future-proofing will be replaced anyway isn't a very good decision.
I'm not saying they can't make mistakes, I'm saying the manner in which they attempt to communicate their mistakes, in any manner, is poor. Instead of addressing the issues that they create through better communication with their community, they sweep it all under the rug and conceal it all, which does only one thing: alienates the community. This comes across as downright deception when they say something(finishing touches), make a mistake somewhere, have to go back and redo some things, and then not tell anyone why beyond some vague ****, and then some people come here and tell me the issue is with me and not them, brown-nosing to the extreme (not you, others).
Better communication fixes issues with communication. People, including this community, are capable of understanding. Unless they give us the tools through which to understand, they appear deceptive and incompetent, which is the direct cause of most peoples frustration on this forum. They are the ones that caused these issues, and I don't want to keep bringing it up, I really don't, but until they actually undertake actions to resolve the issues that they themselves created I'm going to keep being upset and critical. The cringey analogy I've used previously is that TaleWorlds are the ones that opened the door on a submarine underwater, and while the water is flooding in around them their way to "resolve" the issue is by thinking that it was touching doors in the first place that caused this issue, so their way to fix the issue is to not touch any more doors, meanwhile the water is still flooding in. They said, in different ways, that the game is almost complete on more than one occasion now. You don't resolve people's discontent at not having the game by giving them less information, but rather by doing what you said: them "washing their dirty linen in public" and saying "Yeah guys we've had some issues and we're not at all going to announce a release date in the next six months, despite what we've said about finishing touches previously". That would be the end of the problem.
But instead we get half-ass apologies that do nothing to resolve the issue, and since the last time I discussed this with Callum on the forums here there has been 0 change in their attitude or approach to the issues. Some effort and humility would go a long way, much more than they seem to think however.
And lastly you brought up "microscopic dissection", which is absolutely right. But which do you think is worse? TaleWorlds being honest and laying all their cards out on the table, or being cryptic and vague and in the process appearing deceptive, letting the community draw wrong conclusions about what has been said and laying the groundwork for people get to become disgruntled because they are trying to find the answers to a question that was created by TaleWorlds in the first place. Honesty is the best policy here.
Sundeki said:
I'm not objecting to microscopic dissection - I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I just mentioned it as a fact of life that TW have to deal with and no doubt influences their behaviour. Maybe they would be happier to issue more in-game photos in blogs, if people like me stopped blowing them up to extreme magnifications and looking for things they hadn't intended to communicate.
I agree honesty is the best policy, but I do not believe TW have been dishonest, merely uncommunicative. which while frustrating doesn't warrant some of the abusive comments full of asterisks that keep cropping up in some threads.
NPC99 said:
In the sense you're talking about: you may be right. But the biggest issues that crop up come from them being dishonest with themselves, which combined with poor communication and delays certainly gives the impression they are being dishonest everyone else too, especially regarding the "nearly finished" state the game has been in for almost two years.
Sundeki said:
I'm not sure. I was convinced that MP was almost complete and that had spawned the finishing touches comments. TW might already consider that they had put MP captain mode into player's hands at Gamescom 2017 - I certainly watched and enjoyed the Purzelblume & Peter video. What cast doubts was the recent riot over whether MP battle mode was being dropped or side-lined - TW rejected offers of play testing from competitive players on the grounds that MP still wasn't ready. Inconsistent with my assumptions to say the least.
Dethikus
Banned
Rabies said:
I really hate when Stockholm syndrome type people defend TW to their last breath, quit being such a pushover you ****, criticism makes things better, it shows where the community is displeased and where they can improve. If you had it your way TW would be blind navigating development not knowing what the community does, and doesnt like. Stfu.
Sundeki said:
Also i’d like to add the new lighting system doesnt even look good after all that wasted time. The contrast is wayyy too strong, its bright as hell and then the shadows/corners of rooms are utterly pitch black, where you cant even see painting/murals in the castles & whatnot
They are slowly releasing info. Every week they are building a base of information. Obviously they will continue to cover the fundamentals before they get into more interesting niche topics.
Granted, not every blog is interesting. I like most less than some others, but consider if they release blogs weekly, for the next year / two years, the amount of content they have to cover Vs. the amount of blogs. I think they are taking the right approach in biting off one small piece at a time.
Granted, not every blog is interesting. I like most less than some others, but consider if they release blogs weekly, for the next year / two years, the amount of content they have to cover Vs. the amount of blogs. I think they are taking the right approach in biting off one small piece at a time.
Sundeki said:
Alright. I get your point, really I do, but I don't agree with your standpoint.
My view on it is that I appreciate having the weekly blogs - I don't want them to disappear or become less frequent. If the development progress means that the blogs are a bit spartan in terms of juicy new info, then so be it. I'd rather have it that way than not have my weekly coffee-break read. It seems to me that Callum is stringing out the detailed updates so that he will continue to have content to provide on a weekly basis (and sure, that probably means the release is still some way off). But my main point in my previous post was that devblog content has no bearing on development speed: increasing the amount of detailed gameplay information in their communications with fans isn't going to put the game in our hands any sooner - and in addition, by the time the game is released, we most likely will have a much better idea about the important gameplay features and mechanics. So it's fine.
About the development as a whole: you're right, I have joined in with following Bannerlord relatively recently, and that probably means I am less impatient about delays than those who have followed it since it was announced and have been through the mill of previous release estimates. And if I can be a little presumptuous, I think that's where the frustration stems from - I don't think the current community relations team or these weekly blogs deserve to be the target of that ire, because from what I can gather the misleading communications came before their time.
In the last year or so, I have been really happy with these devblogs and the general communications from the developers. And I think they've gone out of their way not to raise false expectations or give promises on timings that they can't be sure of, which is probably a sensible policy. If that means they need to be a bit vague on precise details for now, then, again, so be it. We will get that detail in time.
It's not nice being strung along by false promises or misleading hype. But the current devblogs are not guilty of that - if anything, they are the opposite of it.
Came here to say these exact things, and I agree with the rest of the post. They don't even necessarily have to say what the next blog will be about, they could have a little hint* at the end to get people speculating and thinking of good questions.NPC99 said:
*When I say little, I don't mean cryptic. Being intentionally vague will only serve to shatter people's expectations.
lolbash
Master Knight
DeusPuppy said:It is better than nothing, some people said ( me too) "it is not enough " or " ...Small ... ", but these Blog are Dev. Blogs not more and not less.
in my opinion these Blogs aren´t a Marketing Campain. TW just want to share the development of the Game.
+1
Its called Developer Blogs for a reason. Not Weekly Bannerlord Features.
supersayen121
Veteran
Rainbow Dash said:DeusPuppy said:It is better than nothing, some people said ( me too
in my opinion these Blogs aren´t a Marketing Campain. TW just want to share the development of the Game.
+1
Its called Developer Blogs for a reason. Not Weekly Bannerlord Features.
My problem is that the last two blogs shared nothing new. They said it was for " those that are new to the series," they said nothing that new people couldn't have just found out on the wiki.
If they are sharing things that are already widely known and can be easily determined by going to the wiki (or just watching gameplay), then why bother putting it in a blog let alone using it as the base for two of them.
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