Playerbase shrinking rapidly -10% in the last month

[Dreed89]

@mexxico

The reason "TW is not posting because not feeling comfortable at writing in English" maybe only holds for developers.

We know TW has good English speakers as well, or at least they have access to good speakers because of the developer updates, community posts etc. Those do not have language flaws.

Developers could state their ideas in Turkish and these would be translated and shared on forums.

We even don't need it to be that dynamic and day-to-day. Some posts, maybe every few days, prepared by community managers would also suffice. The important thing is, they must include and address user concerns and questions.

TW does not do any of this... The problem is not language barrier but lack of care.

 

[Barbellz]

They could just update us in full Turkish pages if language is the issue, Google translate is thine olde friend.
There is not really a valid excuse not to communicate with your costumers and fans. Especially in 2020.

 

[GrandiousBrain]

-10% Gain in the last month...
Considering we are on track to full release by around march of next year I just cant see how you can pull off increasing your player count at the current rate of development.
Especially if you are ignoring the most requested features of the player base (example: custom servers and a load out system in MP)

There has to be a point where you have to pull your head out of the dirt and start fulfilling the player bases needs, we don't want your esports or skins.
The day there is a direct Competitor that actually values its players and modders this franchise will absolutely die unless Taleworlds wise up

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

Your HOT TAKE is EXTREMLY TERRIBLE!!!!
1)STOP MISSINFORMING.People like YORUSELF constantly demand freaking Custom Servers and MP stuff when LITTERALY TERE ARE WAY WAY WAY LESS people playing MP than SP.
2)What MAJORITY ACTUALY WANTS is STUFF FOR SP LIKE FEASTS,BETTER AI and so on
3)You are the same people as ones who before EA were telling how they dont care about MP and said to devs to ONLY FOCUS ON SP parto of the game and then near the end or after full release then they can focus on MP same with Modding Tools.People were also saying before EA how devs should focus on SP ONLY and leave the Modding tools after SP is done or after full release (DEVS ALSO FROM THE START SAID HOW THEY WILL DO MODDING TOOLS AFTER THE RELEASE BCS THAT WAY IT WOUDL BE QUICKER/LESS TIME CONSUMING and QUICKER) BUT devs ended being FORCED to change the ORIGINAL PLAN aand spend time on not only MP but also on Modding Tools ENDING WITH SPILTING TEAM AND WASTING TIME ON AMNY OTHER THINGS aka being SPREAD THIN.Same people THAT SAID AT BEGGINING HOW THEY SHOULD FOCUS ON SP ONLY ARE THE SAME POEPEL TAHT AS SOON AS EA WAS RELEASED THEY IMMEDIETLY JUMPED ON BANDWAGON AND LIKE FEW DAYS AFTER RELEASE B*TCHED AND DEMANDED MP and then AFTER MP WAS GIVEN THEN THEY SVICTHED 180 YET AGAIN AND WENT DEMANDING AND B*TCHING ABOUT DMODDING TOOLS.
Whatever DEVS do THEY ARE F*CKED WHY WELL ITS BCS COMMUNITY CONSTANTLY TURNS 180 ALL THE TIME SO THEY CANT WIN.
If they listened to you 3-8 people (minority is always louder than majority and thats a FACT) that DEMAND this (EVEN WHEN DEVS SAID WHY CERTAIN THINGS WONT BE DONE) you people will as soon as they listened and wasted time,resorces,manpower on adding that then you SAME PEOPLE would start bi*ching about how there is no update for months,how game is dead,how they shouldnt have added that and they shouldve focused on AI or SP even when you poeple ASKED FOR IT.

@mexxico

The reason "TW is not posting because not feeling comfortable at writing in English" maybe only holds for developers.

We know TW has good English speakers as well, or at least they have access to good speakers because of the developer updates, community posts etc. Those do not have language flaws.

Developers could state their ideas in Turkish and these would be translated and shared on forums.

We even don't need it to be that dynamic and day-to-day. Some posts, maybe every few days, prepared by community managers would also suffice. The important thing is, they must include and address user concerns and questions.

TW does not do any of this... The problem is not language barrier but lack of care.

wrong you ar eand you not paying any attention go on several devs posts/replies and you will see they are regular and ther edoesent pass more than 2-3 days or so without some of the devs/com manager responding.
TW is preaty active BUT people cant take away 5 mins of their time to actualy go and search for answers and posts.

Unfortunately we'll never see anything like that. I've been following these forums for years and people have been begging TW for more info constantly. But the only official updates we got were an occasional video, a dev blog, or a interview at some of the bigger conventions. Other than that it was pretty much radio silence.

I've seen small studios with less than 10 people who did a better job at communicating with the community. I wouldn't have an issue with with the communication if this wasn't an ea. But to put a game in ea and then have so little community interaction is not just puzzling, it's stupid. TW is their own worst enemy and they've taken many very loyal fans and pissed them off because they won't communicate.

Go and research a little bit.Devs ar epresent and are communicating every few days or so BUT people like yourself cant go and spare 5 minutes of search for them.Just go to few of the devs that are usualya ctive adn go check their history and you woudl see several of them are posting/answering questions every few days/week or so.

Who said I didn't refund it?

then why are you here?

The best example to use then is No Man's Sky, which is a game made by a small, indie company, started overhyped, caused a sh*tstorm at release due to being much less complete than the hype implied, but turned the table through steady patching and free content to now be considered as a complete success.

The parallel with TW is heavy, but the problem is that comparing both actually underscores not HOPES but CAUSES OF CONCERN :
NMS was developped much faster (four years vs ten and counting) by a tiny team (12 vs over 100), it overcame initial failure by implementing a lot of content with rapid develoment cycle (while TW has extremely slow development and next to nil implementation of content).
If anything, NMS makes the situation looks even bleaker, because it managed to produce much more, with much less resources and in much shorter time.

TW was aslo a small team.Its not like they started with Bannerlord with alredy having 100 poepe BUT OVERTIME as game development progressed they slowly build up their team to the nimbers theya r enow.Also people forget that some VETERANS in Dev team left before/during/after Bannerlord was released/in development so TW needed to patch the BIG HOLE that is creaded once VETERAN LEAVES the company bcs then not only the know how veteran leaves but now they need to spend time finding repalcemnet an d when they find it they need to spend time on some training(if needed) and some spending some time of introducing the newcomer on how the compant is aproaching the game and familizrizing the newcomer to how game works.All of that sometime stakes sevral months just to familiarize newcomer to the dynamic of work and familiarization.People forget about that aspect also poeple forget that TW isnt some engine veteran all knowing team wihc casued problems/delays on that part of development.But as i said poeple dont lok at that at all and poele have that ssumption of everyone immedietly has 100+ poepel right from he start when in REALITY its slow overtime increase in manpower and along the way loosing veterans and needing to replace them with newcomers wich brings problems na ddelays on its own.

 

[MostBlunted]

yada yada yada

 

[Koyaan]

you're a cool guy

 

[Piconi]

@GrandiousBrain
You might want to take things easy, you went into a bit of an overdrive here, with 6 consecutive posts (if you got to add something, and your post is the last post of the thread, edit your last post and add onto it), insulted out of the blue one of the most important members when it comes to enabling MP content on this franchise, and spreading misinformation that SP came out before MP, when MP was being played ~10 months before EA release and the SP dropped, noone "whined" for MP and spreading dev team thin, as they are separate teams from the start.
For the rest still stands:
If i gotta come back and check this thread one more time for reports and uncivil discussion, i'm bearing gifts next time.

 

[cyresdog]

? again thanks for the laugh.

Your HOT TAKE is EXTREMLY TERRIBLE!!!!
1)STOP MISSINFORMING.People like YORUSELF constantly demand freaking Custom Servers and MP stuff when LITTERALY TERE ARE WAY WAY WAY LESS people playing MP than SP.
2)What MAJORITY ACTUALY WANTS is STUFF FOR SP LIKE FEASTS,BETTER AI and so on
3)You are the same people as ones who before EA were telling how they dont care about MP and said to devs to ONLY FOCUS ON SP parto of the game and then near the end or after full release then they can focus on MP same with Modding Tools.People were also saying before EA how devs should focus on SP ONLY and leave the Modding tools after SP is done or after full release (DEVS ALSO FROM THE START SAID HOW THEY WILL DO MODDING TOOLS AFTER THE RELEASE BCS THAT WAY IT WOUDL BE QUICKER/LESS TIME CONSUMING and QUICKER) BUT devs ended being FORCED to change the ORIGINAL PLAN aand spend time on not only MP but also on Modding Tools ENDING WITH SPILTING TEAM AND WASTING TIME ON AMNY OTHER THINGS aka being SPREAD THIN.Same people THAT SAID AT BEGGINING HOW THEY SHOULD FOCUS ON SP ONLY ARE THE SAME POEPEL TAHT AS SOON AS EA WAS RELEASED THEY IMMEDIETLY JUMPED ON BANDWAGON AND LIKE FEW DAYS AFTER RELEASE B*TCHED AND DEMANDED MP and then AFTER MP WAS GIVEN THEN THEY SVICTHED 180 YET AGAIN AND WENT DEMANDING AND B*TCHING ABOUT DMODDING TOOLS.
Whatever DEVS do THEY ARE F*CKED WHY WELL ITS BCS COMMUNITY CONSTANTLY TURNS 180 ALL THE TIME SO THEY CANT WIN.
If they listened to you 3-8 people (minority is always louder than majority and thats a FACT) that DEMAND this (EVEN WHEN DEVS SAID WHY CERTAIN THINGS WONT BE DONE) you people will as soon as they listened and wasted time,resorces,manpower on adding that then you SAME PEOPLE would start bi*ching about how there is no update for months,how game is dead,how they shouldnt have added that and they shouldve focused on AI or SP even when you poeple ASKED FOR IT.


wrong you ar eand you not paying any attention go on several devs posts/replies and you will see they are regular and ther edoesent pass more than 2-3 days or so without some of the devs/com manager responding.
TW is preaty active BUT people cant take away 5 mins of their time to actualy go and search for answers and posts.


Go and research a little bit.Devs ar epresent and are communicating every few days or so BUT people like yourself cant go and spare 5 minutes of search for them.Just go to few of the devs that are usualya ctive adn go check their history and you woudl see several of them are posting/answering questions every few days/week or so.


then why are you here?


TW was aslo a small team.Its not like they started with Bannerlord with alredy having 100 poepe BUT OVERTIME as game development progressed they slowly build up their team to the nimbers theya r enow.Also people forget that some VETERANS in Dev team left before/during/after Bannerlord was released/in development so TW needed to patch the BIG HOLE that is creaded once VETERAN LEAVES the company bcs then not only the know how veteran leaves but now they need to spend time finding repalcemnet an d when they find it they need to spend time on some training(if needed) and some spending some time of introducing the newcomer on how the compant is aproaching the game and familizrizing the newcomer to how game works.All of that sometime stakes sevral months just to familiarize newcomer to the dynamic of work and familiarization.People forget about that aspect also poeple forget that TW isnt some engine veteran all knowing team wihc casued problems/delays on that part of development.But as i said poeple dont lok at that at all and poele have that ssumption of everyone immedietly has 100+ poepel right from he start when in REALITY its slow overtime increase in manpower and along the way loosing veterans and needing to replace them with newcomers wich brings problems na ddelays on its own.

You might want to slow down your typing. Even if its accurate what you say. Its incredible hard to read with all the typos, grammar mistakes and comes across as pretty agressive with every 2nd word in all caps.
Made me quit reading halfway through.

But to be on topic. I am really curious on how much 1.5.6 has as an impact on the player count, I personally doubt that it will be more than 5-10% of the initial players that will be coming back. But I am open to be proven wrong

 

[Cri11e]

That's simply not true. Callum was in a competitive clan in early Warband days, and William was an accomplished modder & forum moderator here before joining the company. Other devs have come from the community as well, mostly from the modding side, such as Duh and nijis. MArda has been kicking around the forum for ages and was our "inside man" for a while because he visited the studio sometimes.

It's great that mexxico and a few others post regularly now, but it's not a new thing for TW to only have a couple of devs active on the forum. Back in the Warband and original M&B betas it was usually just Armagan.

To say that TW doesn't care about the community is an insult to those devs that were drawn from it and who still maintain ties to it, as well as those devs that regularly post on the forum. I'm no fan of their snail's pace or stubbornness about certain features & mechanics, but in my 15 years of activity here I have never once had cause to question if they cared about their work and the people who play it. You may want to broaden your perspective.

Not to be a downer but most of us have also been here quite awhile and have different accomplishments. Doesn't mean anything, especially considering the underlying elitism that Warband was infamous for.

Actions > Past merit = Mexxico > Callum.

If he doesn't post and respond to people on these forums his claims of the past means nothing. Us whiners are more engaged in the community than him and hes the community manager. I simply believe hes to comfortable in his position and isn't doing what his job would normally entail: Organizing and forwarding different parts of the development team to answer the questions of this forum or at least vaguely reassuring users, maintaining a positive community atmosphere (*cough* severely failed this one).

What is the community managers actually doing right now (or for the past months?), I'm very curious to see the job description.
Don't get me wrong though, the times when Callum actually answered users its been positive but why isn't he doing this consistently?

@Callum

 

[cyresdog]

Not to be a downer but most of us have also been here quite awhile and have different accomplishments. Doesn't mean anything, especially considering the underlying elitism that Warband was infamous for.

Actions > Past merit = Mexxico > Callum.

If he doesn't post and respond to people on these forums his claims of the past means nothing. Us whiners are more engaged in the community than him and hes the community manager. I simply believe hes to comfortable in his position and isn't doing what his job would normally entail: Organizing and forwarding different parts of the development team to answer the questions of this forum or at least vaguely reassuring users, maintaining a positive community atmosphere (*cough* severely failed this one).

What is the community managers actually doing right now (or for the past months?), I'm very curious to see the job description.
Don't get me wrong though, the times when Callum actually answered users its been positive but why isn't he doing this consistently?

@Callum

I think one has to consider, and I don't want to take anything away from mexxico or anyone else who posts some updates on here, that the people on here love him so much is because he is one of the very very few who is willing to incorporate us, he is the only link we have, to TW and the only one that makes this EA how it should be and how we, or atleast I, thougt Bannerlords EA is gonna work out.

And even with all mexxico does, he is only one developer and can do so much and as far as I understood only is responsible for the campaign/story part. Something little to no one really cares about (sorry mexxico)

 

[Dreed89]

wrong you ar eand you not paying any attention go on several devs posts/replies and you will see they are regular and ther edoesent pass more than 2-3 days or so without some of the devs/com manager responding.
TW is preaty active BUT people cant take away 5 mins of their time to actualy go and search for answers and posts.

I am aware of all daily developer postings, no worries.

Their posts can only tell so much; they cannot hint at the overall development path of the game. They mostly answer about their parts and this does not answer questions like what the final scope of the game will be, if a specific feature ever going to be implemented etc.

Shortly, the lack of communication is at the management level.

 

[YouMoMCallME]

I think that if more and more will be created similar discussions then perhaps the game can end up like DOW 3 . At one time, players destroyed DOW 3 because it did not meet the expectations of players who fell in love with Soulstorm . I think we should not put too much pressure on the development team, I'm sure they are trying as hard as they can. I agree that Bannerlord came out in Early Access pretty early . These are the problems of over-expectations.

 

[Younes]

I think that if more and more will be created similar discussions then perhaps the game can end up like DOW 3 . At one time, players destroyed DOW 3 because it did not meet the expectations of players who fell in love with Soulstorm . I think we should not put too much pressure on the development team, I'm sure they are trying as hard as they can. I agree that Bannerlord came out in Early Access pretty early . These are the problems of over-expectations.

DOW III was a clear failure on the dev side though, they made it lose all what DOW was in soulstorm

 

[YouMoMCallME]

DOW III was a clear failure on the dev side though, they made it lose all what DOW was in soulstorm

I am sure that on the release Bannerlord will be a decent game with all the promised features.

 

[Karl V.]

I stopped playing Bannerlord after two playthroughs (about 150hours). The biggest let down is the lack of the most basic features that were already in Warband native, viking conquest, or mods. The lack of features in SP and depth of gameplay is simply ridiculous. I'm not even gonna start with the lacking MP.
Despite that I still had hope, I posted feedback and tried to contribute to the discussion. The problem for me was that all this was for nothing, there was nearly no communication from Taleworlds and I have yet to see player feedback make ANY impact on TW decisions.
That said I haven't played anymore since June and after seeing no significant updates recently deleted the game.
Now I hope they just finish the base game ASAP and leave it to modders.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Can we get objective posts about the “lack of features”. This has turned into another “buzz gripe” that doesn’t seem to hold too much water. For almost anything that can be named that was somewhere else/in another game , it’s been implemented here in a different way, capacity, or replaced with an equivalent (some pending, but are know)

The amount of ways one can advance a character is larger here then any other M&B

The amount of ways there are to make money are larger here then any other M&B

The amount of interactive stuff in towns is much better, people just complained until everything was short-cutter to all hell so they never have to go into town (I mention this as I’ve seen complaints there’s no reason to into cities, but whenever we have one, folk gripe until their now on a quick access menu).

This isn’t to say there isn’t old favorite activities or features missing, but saying “lack of features” is a cop out, and the argument would be better served if people were specific as to what they were talking about.

 

[MostBlunted]

The amount of ways there are to make money are larger here then any other M&B

So we have the broken smithing, trade and battles (loot), what else?

It´s not about specific features that are missing for me, it´s about the whole end game that is missing. You reach a certain point where all you do is repeating the same stuff over and over again forever. That´s fine for a mmorpg but not for a SP sandbox game in my opinion.

Early game is awesome, mid game is decent, end game doesn´t exist.

Maybe the upcoming rebellions can change that, at least I hope so.

And about what interactive stuff are you talking in the towns? There are board games and what else? You mean the gang leader fights which is just triggered stuff after I´ve accepted the quest for it? Or what am I missing?

 

[Koyaan]

Yeah in retrospect I should have asked a proper question in my original post, but It was morso a quick rant about the state of development after being frustrated with how TW are handling the Custom servers thread in the MP forum. Id be satisfied with this thread getting locked if someone from Taleworlds can answer me one question:

Is there an transparent roadmap coming that clearly details what fixes and new features we will see by full release with clear explanations for why they they will/ wont be in the full release. Specifically the custom servers from the MP section and as for Singleplayer other users could suggest the main topics they want to be addressed.

If there isnt one coming... why?

 

[relam10]

Yeah in retrospect I should have asked a proper question in my original post, but It was morso a quick rant about the state of development after being frustrated with how TW are handling the Custom servers thread in the MP forum. Id be satisfied with this thread getting locked if someone from Taleworlds can answer me one question:

Is there an transparent roadmap coming that clearly details what fixes and new features we will see by full release with clear explanations for why they they will/ wont be in the full release. Specifically the custom servers from the MP section and as for Singleplayer other users could suggest the main topics they want to be addressed.

Well, there is a recent roadmap posted around october, but...

Apparently priorities still balancing stuff, optimization, missing scenarios, improving AI, quest, rebelions (atleast some new content)....

Too generical stuff, I would like to get more specific things tbh.

 

[MostBlunted]

Is there an transparent roadmap coming that clearly details what fixes and new features we will see by full release with clear explanations for why they they will/ wont be in the full release.

Nope, of course not but:

 

[Koyaan]

Well, there is a recent roadmap posted around october, but...

Apparently priorities still balancing stuff, optimization, missing scenarios, improving AI, quest, rebelions (atleast some new content)....

Too generical stuff, I would like to get more specific things tbh.

Yeah I mean a full roadmap, complete transparency for what to expect for full release with in depth explanations for why we might be missing features or why we will have ones that arent being requested

atleast that way we don't have to unnecessarily hope each update will give us what we want, we can make good with how the full release will be and go on with our lives.

Tbh I really dont expect to get this request giving how callum handled the custom server thread recently- I don't blame him for that entirely though, its clear management don't want him to answer the important questions.

So il likely dissapear once this gets ignored and keep trying to refund this game lol