Opinion about developer blogs

[kXlIdRoberta // Seb Merc]

The problem here aren't the blogs, the blogs themselves are good. But the issue is the lack of release date, or even a release century. Tons of newcomers or people who aren't so invested in the forums come for a release date, or some hint on WHEN they can get their hands on the game. And it surely doesn't help with Taleworlds not being transparent about anything (posting a blog on scabbards and swords for a game called Mount and BLADE instead of when we can play the game), I am pretty sure the community would understand if there are issues with development.

I'm just struggling to see how Taleworlds are going to get old customers back, or even new one after hearing of  the sh*tshow called Bannerlord, if this game ever releases I'm just gonna unfollow and completely ignore Taleworld's posts about new titles they want to release in the future. I don't think Taleworlds can afford this type of PR and status in the gaming community after this lack of transparency and communication with the fans.

 

[Duh]

The problem here aren't the blogs, the blogs themselves are good. But the issue is the lack of release date, or even a release century. Tons of newcomers or people who aren't so invested in the forums come for a release date, or some hint on WHEN they can get their hands on the game. And it surely doesn't help with Taleworlds not being transparent about anything (posting a blog on scabbards and swords for a game called Mount and BLADE instead of when we can play the game), I am pretty sure the community would understand if there are issues with development.

I'm just struggling to see how Taleworlds are going to get old customers back, or even new one after hearing of  the sh*tshow called Bannerlord, if this game ever releases I'm just gonna unfollow and completely ignore Taleworld's posts about new titles they want to release in the future. I don't think Taleworlds can afford this type of PR and status in the gaming community after this lack of transparency and communication with the fans.

Fundamentally, I agree with the sentiment that they should share more substantial information. Probably not a release date (unless they are 110% certain, because people can't handle it being delayed), but definetely a road map. What have you done? Where are you at? What do you want to do? Even in the roughest of terms that would be a good thing.

Unfortunately, though, people seem to think that negative feedback to information shared will somehow convince TW to share more. I think we are currently seeing how that is not working out.

 

[VVyrd]

Developer Blogs are not marketing? Tell that to Paradox. As much as I despise them for their policies in the recent years, they know how to hype **** up solely by dev blogs.


The only thing I do not enjoy about them is that even the smallest of features gets spoiled by them, but it isn't entirely bad. Taleworlds doesn't have to go down this route, they could keep writing about employees so long as the interviews themselves contain a bit more juice. Technical stuff, like the modding Q&A, was absolutely superb and to this day probably the best dev blog by TW, while spoiling no features nor being marketing by itself.

 

[kXlIdRoberta // Seb Merc]

The problem here aren't the blogs, the blogs themselves are good. But the issue is the lack of release date, or even a release century. Tons of newcomers or people who aren't so invested in the forums come for a release date, or some hint on WHEN they can get their hands on the game. And it surely doesn't help with Taleworlds not being transparent about anything (posting a blog on scabbards and swords for a game called Mount and BLADE instead of when we can play the game), I am pretty sure the community would understand if there are issues with development.

I'm just struggling to see how Taleworlds are going to get old customers back, or even new one after hearing of  the sh*tshow called Bannerlord, if this game ever releases I'm just gonna unfollow and completely ignore Taleworld's posts about new titles they want to release in the future. I don't think Taleworlds can afford this type of PR and status in the gaming community after this lack of transparency and communication with the fans.

Fundamentally, I agree with the sentiment that they should share more substantial information. Probably not a release date (unless they are 110% certain, because people can't handle it being delayed), but definetely a road map. What have you done? Where are you at? What do you want to do? Even in the roughest of terms that would be a good thing.

Unfortunately, though, people seem to think that negative feedback to information shared will somehow convince TW to share more. I think we are currently seeing how that is not working out.

I agree with you aswell, a roadmap of current status would be great. Maybe not even a release date, but maybe a time period is what I meant, just saying "not 2018" comes a long way imo.

 

[Callum]

Our blogs aim to touch on many different things and we know that sometimes they might not be as exciting or groundbreaking as some of you would hope. The blogs are aimed at a wide variety of readers: many of you are existing community members who have a fairly good understanding of what to expect from the game, however, sometimes (like with the weapon overview blogs) we will try to introduce people who are new to our games to different aspects of Bannerlord to give them a better understanding of what Mount & Blade is and what they can expect from the game.

We went from an extended period of silence to weekly updates (which is a pretty huge step!). This gives us a chance to talk about a range of topics, both big and small, but most importantly, on a regular basis. The aim was (and still is) to engage with you all and present topics of discussion about the game which you could look at and leave your feedback on (which we definitely take into account). 

Sometimes we will talk about new features or improvements we have made on existing features from the series. Other times we will give players an overview of aspects of the game which aren't directly gameplay related. At times we try to explain our thought process behind a particular decision. And sometimes we take a look at our company and the people who are making the game. We know they can be a little hit and miss at times for some of our readers, but if you don't enjoy any particular one then the best advice we can give is to come back next Thursday to see if we touch on a topic which interests you!

We know that many people would like some sort of timeframe or roadmap for the release, however, this is something we have decided against doing. You are all well aware that in the past we have said we hoped to have the game in your hands by X, and this backfired when we failed to hit those targets. We don't want to build up people's hopes or expectations until we are 100% certain that we will hit that target, and because of that we won't be announcing any dates or discussing the specifics of the development progress in great detail.

 

[lolbash]

we will try to introduce people who are new to our games to different aspects of Bannerlord

Why? Who the hell is has never played a Mount and Blade game before, yet made an account on the Taleworlds forum, or subscribed to the Mount and Blade Bannerlord steam group to read dev blogs on a sequel to a game they have never played? Seems like you're targeting a nonexistent group of people.

If you want to actually introduce people that have never played Mount and Blade before, you start by showing off videos of people killing each other with face paced cutscenes and editing showing cool moves and fire arrows killing everyone, giving free keys to youtubers like Skallagrim and buying ad space and drumming up hype, not with Dev Blogs.

 

[kalarhan]

Why? Who the hell is has never played a Mount and Blade game before, yet made an account on the Taleworlds forum, or subscribed to the Mount and Blade Bannerlord steam group

Steam has something called whishlist and another feature to follow news on games.

You add games there that you are interested on, even before release.

Bannerlord has a Steam page, so people can add Bannerlord.

Bannerlord is often listed on Youtube lists like 10 most expected RPG of the year (since 2015 lol), it also has articles on gaming magazines and it was presented on gaming shows. That suggests there are people out there that don't want to play the old game (2010 version), but that they would want to follow the next one (Bannerlord).

If you are unsure how this works you could ask TW to share numbers like how many people has added them on their whishlist or following lists. Doubt they will tell you tho 

We know that many people would like some sort of timeframe or roadmap for the release, however, this is something we have decided against doing.

How about a roadmap for the blogs then? Something simple like the plans for the next 4 weeks. That gives a idea of what is coming, it helps players decide when to check them out (e.g: I dont care about weapons, so skip next week, but I want to see the one in 3 weeks about world map) and manage their crazy hype.

 

[Duh]

Why?

To speculate:

The genre is getting a bit more attention at this point in time and it is not unreasonable to utilize that. I doubt everyone who plays KCD, for instance, has played MB. At the same time, it is probably a matter of practicality. TW doesn't want to discuss specific development steps, yet they do want to run a weekly blog. If something like http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com isn't an option for them... they need to find other content to share. As major updates/presentations aren't really viable on a weekly basis either, a changing quantity/quality of information (that may be aimed at varying audiences) isn't all that surprising.

 

[lolbash]

Yes, I know that weekly blogs are going to be lot of work and that some blogs will suck.

However, the "we are targeting new players" part is what really ticks me off.

Besides, they are called Developer Blogs. I expect them to be reports on how developement is going on the game, not advertising the game. There are many more ways to advertise the game. And I don't believe that Dev Blogs are an effective one.

 

[Duh]

However, the "we are targeting new players" part is what really ticks me off.

Well, it seems more like "we are also targeting new players/we are targeting new players when we don't have an interesting topic for the existing community".

 

[DeusPuppy]

However, the "we are targeting new players" part is what really ticks me off.

Well, it seems more like "we are also targeting new players/we are targeting new players when we don't have an interesting topic for the existing community".

There are a lot of interesting Topic, i mean just the Options Menu of the Game could releasing some new Feature or the Keyboard Layout could bring some new Information.

 

[Duh]

Those are about as interesting as basic weapon categories to me :p

 

[AJIexander]

Callum, we agree to blogs for newcomers. But tell us, why from one blog do two ??? Ranged and melee weapons could be released by one blog. Looking at this, it seems to the players that the game will only be released in 3 years...(

 

[Rungsted93]

I would love to hear what has changed in Bannerlord since it went from "Getting it out before the year ends in 2016" to now probably not even releasing in 2018. Some clarification would be awesome and I think it would also make people understand a whole lot more.

 

[mat2rivs]

I would love to hear what has changed in Bannerlord since it went from "Getting it out before the year ends in 2016" to now probably not even releasing in 2018. Some clarification would be awesome and I think it would also make people understand a whole lot more.

My best bet on that is single player complexity is adding to the dev time.  Multiplayer looks pretty complete, but single player is so much more complicated.

Think about this 1 item for single player:  Scenes

In Warband, you had 1, maybe 2 scenes for each village, castle, and town.  In Bannerlord, each village needs 1 scene for the village (not sure if more are needed for 'enterprises') Then 3 scenes for a castle.  Add to that the navigation maps, lighting generation, differentiation for seasons, quests related differences, entry points, etc.  Then each village could take a week or more to complete.  Multiply that by 200? villages and that is a lot of time.  Then move on to Towns, and I'm not sure how many different scenes will be needed.  There's at least the town, keep, tournament grounds, Inns? (some seemed linked to the town).

I personally think that all the scene design (layout, atmosphere, props, flow, etc) needed to make Bannerlord work as we have been told it will, is a major undertaking.  And this is only one of the many parts that are necessary to make the Campaign work.

Also think campaign map, parties, lords, spawns, quests, seasons, random battle scene generation... The list goes on and on.  If they've only had the engine 'complete' enough to really get started with this part of the game for a couple years, then that explains to me why we are still waiting.

But, I wish they would just tell us that, so we didn't just wait and wonder...

 

[Roccoflipside]

Yeah, I would rather have a "Hey guys, we hit a bit of a roadblock, but we're back on the road now, don't expect anything before 2020 (or whatever)" than just a blanket "sometime"

 

[Silen]

Callum, we agree to blogs for newcomers. But tell us, why from one blog do two ??? Ranged and melee weapons could be released by one blog. Looking at this, it seems to the players that the game will only be released in 3 years...(

And besides, those are generic categories of weapons that anyone would expect to see in a medieval game, or generally anything medieval. I don't see how the two weapon blogs were aimed at people new to the series, when even people who never heard of M&B would've expected to see those weapons in a medieval game.

*Shrugs* Whatever though, better than complete silence.

 

[supersayen121]

I'm excited for the next blog topic "Rocks"

 

[Rungsted93]

I would love to hear what has changed in Bannerlord since it went from "Getting it out before the year ends in 2016" to now probably not even releasing in 2018. Some clarification would be awesome and I think it would also make people understand a whole lot more.

My best bet on that is single player complexity is adding to the dev time.  Multiplayer looks pretty complete, but single player is so much more complicated.

Think about this 1 item for single player:  Scenes

In Warband, you had 1, maybe 2 scenes for each village, castle, and town.  In Bannerlord, each village needs 1 scene for the village (not sure if more are needed for 'enterprises') Then 3 scenes for a castle.  Add to that the navigation maps, lighting generation, differentiation for seasons, quests related differences, entry points, etc.  Then each village could take a week or more to complete.  Multiply that by 200? villages and that is a lot of time.  Then move on to Towns, and I'm not sure how many different scenes will be needed.  There's at least the town, keep, tournament grounds, Inns? (some seemed linked to the town).

I personally think that all the scene design (layout, atmosphere, props, flow, etc) needed to make Bannerlord work as we have been told it will, is a major undertaking.  And this is only one of the many parts that are necessary to make the Campaign work.

Also think campaign map, parties, lords, spawns, quests, seasons, random battle scene generation... The list goes on and on.  If they've only had the engine 'complete' enough to really get started with this part of the game for a couple years, then that explains to me why we are still waiting.

But, I wish they would just tell us that, so we didn't just wait and wonder...

Yeah but then again while they've probably updated assets and so forth these 7 years they should have been able to copy most of the scenes over even though the engine has been updated. Captain Lust made that engine video years ago and even if they started back then and just had 4-5 people doing level design it should be done by now. 1 person can most likely do 1-2 scenes a month.
I'm not saying though it's not a whole lot of work to do and if that's the case it's a 100% legit reason I think everyone can accept takes time to do properly. Hence why them just telling us that's the reason and it took longer than expected would be nice!

 

[Spazz]

Yeah, I would rather have a "Hey guys, we hit a bit of a roadblock, but we're back on the road now, don't expect anything before 2020 (or whatever)" than just a blanket "sometime"

That would be soo much better, I'm sure the community would also join in to help them to solve their problems.