Poll - Are u satisfied with how TW has been tackling this EA?

[Shillslayer]

Very bad.

The game has been in development for atleast 8 years; longer than an overwhelming majority of games ever made throughout all of video game industry history. On top of that, the early access for the game was almost one year ago now. More technically stable and impressive games have been made in almost that time alone. Considering what we've seen from those atleast 8 years + almost 1 year of early access, what we've been seeing has been very, very disappointing indeed.

One would've thought that the massive success in sales would've resulted in more employees, speeding up the development process of the early access. But that doesn't seem to be the case, not that we who are not involved with the company in any way know of anyways.

 

[black_bulldog]

So three people misclicked?

LOL I just spit out my drink thanks @MostBlunted

OP I have to ask where is my option ?

 

[Will Greaves]

I've loved Mount & Blade since I stumbled across the original game when it was in beta. Bannerlord is, at its core, a worthy successor; it has so many things about it that are amazing. I've played it for hundreds of hours already, and haven't enjoyed a game this much in several years.

However, in its current state (and I don't just mean the most current version), Bannerlord is absolutely broken. While this is to be expected (as it's beta), I'm disheartened about how many bugs & issues seem to go unnoticed. There are dozens of obvious ones that haven't made it onto the known bugs list even after two or three "stable" versions. Some of the bugs are game-breaking (one repeating crash made it impossible to continue my campaign past a certain date in-game).

Normally, I'd express surprise that the community hasn't reported them, except I myself am likewise declining to report them lately. Why? Well, because I often experience resistance from the Taleworlds support team when I do report them. I write a report with enough info for QA to easily track down the problem, but about half the time, I get a form-letter response asking me to go well out of my way to provide redundant information (e.g. a video recording of something that doesn't need video evidence, because of how easy to reproduce it is). I've already gone out of my way to make a detailed report with WTR, and I'm not getting paid to do this kind of professional-level stress-testing.

So I've got a list of bugs written down that's getting longer and longer, but I don't have the energy to report them because ~half of my reports are ignored or stonewalled. So, yeah, I'm unhappy with how TW is handling the beta. I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the game and the company, but no rose-tinted spectacles for me; in TW's case, genius and madness are two sides of the same coin.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

I put neutral, and really the only thing not pushing me into "Bad/Very Bad" are the handful of Devs and community managers who engage with us all of the time like Mexxico. There are some really great things (like combat and the economy) but every single other thing is either half-baked or not included from Warband.

 

[Mad Vader]

Spoiler: A single picture...

 

[Frostic]

BUT NO FUKING DIVORCE.

You gave me a good chuckle !

I wrote this in August 5th. It still stands today.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/designing-bannerlord.428570

This is a really good thread, hope some dev picks it up.

I voted 'bad' mostly because :
1) poor design choices, even when a big part of the community is against those choices.
2) i haven't seen any (cant recall anyway) attempts by TW Were they consult their fanbase about upcoming direction of the game that could be taken.
3) there have been numerous threads with great suggestions, and i feel like there are at best only a few developers who take the time to react and sometimes bother to insert the ideas into the dev team. Theyre Sticking their necks out to make the fanbase feel like they're listened to.
Where are the decision makers? Wheres the "active" part of community management here?

I used to feel like: its their game, they can do whatever they want and it will be fine. For a while now, ive been doubting that assumption. Don't get me wrong, i play bannerlord a couple of times per month and enjoy it (to some extent) but the way TW is handling this is not making me feel like they're listening to the community. I hope they realise that they CAN turn this for the better.

I couldn't with you more. Let's hope they'll improve on this.

 

[crimsonfilms]

I'm quite satisfied. I have done several EA games already. This is not the fastest nor it is the slowest.

 

[Cornelis]

I would like to click quite satisfied but I won't since I'm gonna say satisfied because there has been developer disputes which have been slowing down the progress and a lack of communication I appreciate the rate of updates it can be slow but I'm understanding always going to be a stress while working on a project it's just I think they could be doing a few things a little bit better

 

[Antaeus]

I'm quite satisfied. I have done several EA games already. This is not the fastest nor it is the slowest.

Totally... I also like the idea of endless iteration (as per Minecraft) where there is no single launch date, but rather an ongoing update schedule that continually adds features and expands the world.

 

[Senko]

Going with neutral here, there is always hope for a miracle

 

[Askorti]

One would've thought that the massive success in sales would've resulted in more employees, speeding up the development process of the early access. But that doesn't seem to be the case, not that we who are not involved with the company in any way know of anyways.

That is completely not how game dev works. Throwing more people at the project will not make it go faster, it might actually have the exact opposite effect.

 

[Mad Vader]

That is completely not how game dev works. Throwing more people at the project will not make it go faster, it might actually have the exact opposite effect.

True, but losing experienced people and not hiring new ones is also not very helpful. The multiplayer team at least is complaining that they are understaffed.
TW is hiring for Bannerlord for some time now (6 openings at the moment) and if we assume they know what they are doing, this means they are committed to improving Bannerlord for at least a couple of years. The problem they may be having is that they can't get good candidates, since those openings are unfilled for at least several months - Turkey is not an attractive country to work in and Bannerlord is a troubled project with possibly serious management issues.

Edit: If you are a gaming writer, consider working on their next sci-fi game. That's like the bestest job in the world if management doesn't screw that up too.

 

[Limbojack]

I think they've done a decent job so far, at least compared to other beta-released games out there. My problem with TaleWorlds isn't the developmental progress but the extremely poor communication. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd rate their communication as a solid -369. The game progress, on the other hand, has been pretty nice. There's been a few priorities I haven't understood but all in all it's been decent enough.

 

[sositehui]

Very bad.

The game has been in development for atleast 8 years; longer than an overwhelming majority of games ever made throughout all of video game industry history. On top of that, the early access for the game was almost one year ago now. More technically stable and impressive games have been made in almost that time alone. Considering what we've seen from those atleast 8 years + almost 1 year of early access, what we've been seeing has been very, very disappointing indeed.

One would've thought that the massive success in sales would've resulted in more employees, speeding up the development process of the early access. But that doesn't seem to be the case, not that we who are not involved with the company in any way know of anyways.

yes yes + plus totallos agreedos
8 years GAD DEM son!

 

[sositehui]

yes yes + plus totallos agreedos
8 years GAD DEM son!

at first i was like GAD DEM MURRICANS but then i be like GAD DEM TURKEYS

 

[Viranto]

neutral. I'm not happy how slow the progress is and how long i wait for this, but i had a lot of fun and played it more than the most other games. So when i look at my money and at my fun, it was worth it. But of course i miss a looot of features.

But when i see the whole thing more like an remake of warband with new graphic, qol changes and such things, I'm happy.
But of course it would be cool to have a lot more stuff, actually i have really the feeling only to play an remake of the older games and not a new one with big new functions.(I think the problem for the most is the modding. The most played warband never without mods, so this game here feels really barebone. However, it should not be viewed from this perspective. Since the mods do not come from the developer, I can only compare it with Warband vanilla and then its a step forward for me.)

 

[Galvar]

I'm split between neutral and unhappy, so I can't vote with a clear conscience.

Most of the issues come from the fact that the game wasn't ready for an early access. Looks like they had a very ambitious idea that they just couldn't execute and kept on scrapping features in a rush to finally put something for the players. This is why the design feels a bit disjointed. They probably had some general plans coming into to the Early Access, but the player feedback and some issues being harder than expected to solve made them reconsider. So the progress of an early access feels a bit chaotic too and the game isn't in a state I was hoping it to be. And it doesn't look like our priorities align (for example RP and peace time activities seem to be completely overlooked and they're important to me).

On the other hand, there is no other game that scratches that ich in the way that Warband and Bannerlord do. Some changes they made were very solid. And the communication from some developers is amazing. So I can't definitely say that I'm unhappy with what they're putting.

 

[Crypex]

Depends, MP and SP are getting a different treatment. Single-player is doing great, multiplayer on the other hand not so great. SP is more work-intensive so devs put time into it. MP is not as active, and depending on the region and server placement was an issue to some communities. Ultimately the developers are slowly but steadily making the game good and hopefully in the next year or so the developers will have a good quality game for both SP and MP players.

 

[RhodokScrub47]

I personally would say neutral. I think during EA they have done well but I was extremely disappointed with how little of the game was actually finished when EA started.

 

[Crypex]

I personally would say neutral. I think during EA they have done well but I was extremely disappointed with how little of the game was actually finished when EA started.

The expectations were very high with 8 years of development. The more time is spent the higher the expectation.