PoP planned for Bannerlord ?

[NorthWind]

Thank you Pind for the words of support and encouragement. I am in the ending stages of another project now with a permanent development team. When we are finished, then I will turn the teams attention to POP and Bannerlord. It is not quite that simple as a direct port, as the structure of Bannerlord is not the same as it is in Warband. The clan system for example is integral to Bannerlord and it is not present in Warband. Warband we can own villages, and in Bannerlord that is not possible. The analysis and design needs to answer "where do we cut from or add to" in order to create the ending product. No matter the answer, there is extensive design, artwork, coding and time. I am not so worried about risk here as I am confident we can create an experience that everyone will enjoy for many years. The real question I am interested in answering is "What is the experience, and at what stage of play, do we want to implement?" For example, both POP, Warband and Bannerlord have issues during the latter stages of game play where the game becomes a grind. We need to create different types of challenges and systems to interact with to make play more "succulent" at that stage of the game. One of the more interesting aspects of the Mount&Blade (all versions) system is the transformative mode of play. You and your character grow in terms of what can, and indeed should, be interacted with during play. When we start out we pretty much ignore the larger political game and focus on a single character a few companions and a smattering of soldiers and doing missions. As we "Grow" we start to play the larger game surrounding kingdoms and lords and relationships. In POP we began to address that with the Knighthood order concept. I think that was a good first step, but still needs more pathways to follow and more intrigue, diplomacy options, lord interactions, and Knighthood order interactions to round out that end game experience.

This was a very well articulated explanation. You have my full support of POP in Bannerlord, i know how long it took you and your team to develop POP to v 1.0 in 2009 and from there to Warband's 3.9.5. Bannerlord is still in it's WIP phase, but it's starting to mold into the final product.

 

[skoonting]

I know the idea of having PoP for bannerlord be an official release in the same vein as Viking conquest has been mentioned at one point, but this was a while ago, so I'm wondering if anything ever came of it? Have the devs of PoP contacted taleworlds, and if so, do they seem receptive to the idea? I think it would be really cool, and would 100% buy it if it was officialy released on steam

 

[Gorvex]

I know the idea of having PoP for bannerlord be an official release in the same vein as Viking conquest has been mentioned at one point, but this was a while ago, so I'm wondering if anything ever came of it? Have the devs of PoP contacted taleworlds, and if so, do they seem receptive to the idea? I think it would be really cool, and would 100% buy it if it was officialy released on steam

Bannerlord is still in early access state...

 

[skoonting]

Bannerlord is still in early access state...

I'm not talking about starting development. Obviously, that would be a waste of time at this point. I'm talking about potentially reaching an understanding or even a deal with taleworlds, so that it could be taken into account during the planning stages of development (which has already been mentioned will be starting at some point). Whether or not the game will be a simple mod like for Warband, or a full DLC expansion is important to take into account when doing that planning, with regards to scope and whatnot

 

[saxondragon]

Hi Skoonting. No, we have not reached out yet as we need some semblance of a design document to present and have a realistic discussion around. Realistically until Bannerlord's features are truly set in stone, creation of a design document would be futile as there are significant features that would need to be changed, and/or designed and implemented. What are they? I do not know. No one does. The answer is "it depends". Think of it like remodeling a house when the house is still being built. You have to wait to see what the builders create before you can gain a sense of what needs to be done. There are costs involved with this; time costs and real costs. What are those costs? Depends upon what needs to be done.

 

[Sidhe]

Pop with tweaks was and still is the best Single player experience within the Mount and Blade world.
Because, to be honest, the Combat in Warband was and is far better than Bannerlord.
Who knows why the very best part of Warband had to be reinvented with a ****ty broken wobbly wheel, instead of the most perfect trinity ever, is anyone's guess. This will hold back any Mod that is developed for Bannerlord, even if they improved many things that needed working on.
I would love to see the graphics of Bannerlord in a Prophesy of Pendor game, rather than a Bannerlord gameplay version of Prophesy of Pendor.
Ultimately though all M&B games are over once you become strong enough to fight off a large Army, which is way before the story ends.

Final thoughts though, Saxon Dragon and his team are bound to turn whatever they do into something most players would love to play.

 

[Thalarian]

Hi Skoonting. No, we have not reached out yet as we need some semblance of a design document to present and have a realistic discussion around. Realistically until Bannerlord's features are truly set in stone, creation of a design document would be futile as there are significant features that would need to be changed, and/or designed and implemented. What are they? I do not know. No one does. The answer is "it depends". Think of it like remodeling a house when the house is still being built. You have to wait to see what the builders create before you can gain a sense of what needs to be done. There are costs involved with this; time costs and real costs. What are those costs? Depends upon what needs to be done.

Thank you for all the time you've taken answering these questions Sax. I'd imagine over time it can get a little cumbersome given how badly everyone is pining for it to happen, but hopefully that reflects the incredible product you all put out.


If and when the development starts to bring PoP to Bannerlord, please don't hesitate to open a Patreon/Kickstarter/GoFundMe or whatever Congressman you have to call to get donations. As an avid PoP player since 1.0 all those years ago I know that I, along with many others, will happily donate to the cause. A massive thanks to you and your team!

 

[CrazyElf]

The good news is that Bannerlord is nearing release, so we are closer to this process.

For those of you who are players and have never been part of an entertainment development process I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that this is not simple. This is many thousands of hours of coordinated skilled labor. The original POP in mount&Blade was two thousand hours to reach the 1.0 version. Then another four to six thousand hours in maybe 10 development cycles to reach where it is today and that only by the efforts of a top tier coder who donated his time to the conversion and to the extension into Warband and the superhuman collective effort of highly skilled folks who took a passion to this work and donated their effort and time to make this project come alive.

Indeed so. There's a reason why I said, mid-2020s, (say around 2025) is likely the earliest we are going to see a truly complete version of Pendor, unless the amount of devs exceeds what I expect. I'd love to be wrong though, but it's a ton of work.

---

For those unaware of the amount of work, the mod Kingdoms of Arda, the Tolkien fantasy port began modelling several years (2016 IIRC) before the Early Access release of Bannerlord in 2020. They are still working and I would not be surprised if we don't see any public beta until 2024.

That's important because Kingdoms of Arda is probably the most hyped mod right now for Bannerlord. It's predecessor, The Last Days of the Third Age, along with Prophecy of Pendor, are generally considered the best mods of Warband.

Pendor is basically starting from ground up here and the dev as hinted previously has to learn a new programming language. Assuming this even takes off (that's a big "if", at this stage), I'd say mid-2020s for the first versions of Pendor, and then updates will have to come in the late 2020s.

 

[Icewood]

Thanks Cyprian2, that is exactly the plan.. Let me lay it out for everyone the timeline.

1. Finish my current project with another development team.
2. Taleworlds has to complete their software development kit along with the map designer and release it.
3. We must develop a project plan (design documents, lore documents, writing documents, art bible, coding manifesto and data dictionary) for POP.. added features, factions, artwork, banners etc.
4. I have to obtain, install and learn C#. Then I have to learn what they did in Bannerlord and how their system works and understand if the designs from #3 can be done, or modified or dropped.
5. I need to contact Taleworlds with a completed #3 and explore if this is a standalone product, dlc or something else.

This all has to be done before a single line of code is written, or any artwork is done or lore is implemented into the game, or music is explored and selected or voice overs (if we do them) are written, directed and implemented. Once we can code it, then we are looking at many months of work; 18 to 36 months at a wild guess before "The first" playable version is available depending on everything above. I know we all want answers, and I would love to give them to you. But I would be remiss if I set something in stone when I know very well that there are so many factors in play that it would have no real value. I refuse to commit to something if I cannot guarantee the integrity of the answer or results.

There are a few other variables that will modify this, such as the available talent pool and how that talent pool is recruited and compensated.

For those of you who are players and have never been part of an entertainment development process I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that this is not simple. This is many thousands of hours of coordinated skilled labor. The original POP in mount&Blade was two thousand hours to reach the 1.0 version. Then another four to six thousand hours in maybe 10 development cycles to reach where it is today and that only by the efforts of a top tier coder who donated his time to the conversion and to the extension into Warband and the superhuman collective effort of highly skilled folks who took a passion to this work and donated their effort and time to make this project come alive.

It's been a while since i was looking around here, waiting for BL to come out first.
First I wanted to thank you for PoP, it changed the way I looked at WB completely, and even more than that, Pop is the main thing that made me go back to school at my age ( 40) and sign up for university to get a bachelor's degree in game design ( on my third year now), wanted to learn how to make mods like that and more.
Now I'm aware developing an all-new PoP for BL is going to take a long time, and I'm aware that last time I checked it was still in the air if you guys were even going to do it or not, so I was wondering if there are any plans to make it and if it's a definite yes, did you guys started the process yet or not and any other info you can tell us please including a Patreon for the project, or job board if you guys looking for more people to help etc...
Thank you in advance.

Inspiring Level designer.

 

[Johanno]

Hi Skoonting. No, we have not reached out yet as we need some semblance of a design document to present and have a realistic discussion around. Realistically until Bannerlord's features are truly set in stone, creation of a design document would be futile as there are significant features that would need to be changed, and/or designed and implemented. What are they? I do not know. No one does. The answer is "it depends". Think of it like remodeling a house when the house is still being built. You have to wait to see what the builders create before you can gain a sense of what needs to be done. There are costs involved with this; time costs and real costs. What are those costs? Depends upon what needs to be done.

So is there already a way to support PoP Bannerlord financially or in short: "shut up and take my money "
Also thanks for the updates and the effort and for the old PoP mod!

 

[saxondragon]

@Johanno. Not directly yet. We are working on the next iteration now. Information and updates found on Facebook.