Seriously, what happened?

[Gundabad]

I know this has been brought up before a lot of times, but I still cannot help going back to this question time and time again. It's like a mystery I can't wrap my head around.
I started following the development of Bannerlord back in 2015, when I also first discovered and played Warband. That's when I first stumbled across the 2015 promotional video:




So much seemed to already be done by then, and a lot of it still looks the same today. Some of it even looked better in my opinion (map, non-matching troops). The changes over the following years were most notably UI and map changes. Given I know almost nothing about game development, seven years of development seems a long time for just that. Why couldn't it have gone into early access sooner? What really happened at TW between 2015 until now?

Did they lose developers? Was it the console version?

I want to stress that I'm really not trying to bash TW – I'm just genuinely curious about what happened. Does anyone know?

 

[anoddhermit]

That doesn't show a lot being already done, it's just a tiny sample of things they were working on. It's using like one town out of 60 lol. None of that necessarily worked smoothly, just enough that it could be used in short clips. They had to balance and bugfix all sorts of things they're obviously not going to show in a promo vid. Making a trailer that looks like it could be from a complete game is both easy and common for game companies. Be glad they didn't sell the game based on hyping a trailer but worked on making a game that isn't released as a broken mess like Fallout 76 or No Man's Sky.

People have understandable complaints about certain issues the game has, but I can still play the sandbox or campain for hundreds of hours with no major bugs, and relatively few minor ones. I have no performance issues on a less than amazing PC on fairly high settings, as well. The info in game is largely accurate, the controls reasonably smooth, the troops reasonably responsive to commands, etc. etc. All kinds of things you might not think about that aren't represented visually in something like a trailer, but that you'd certainly notice while playing.

So yeah, people know. The game was developed, it took awhile because they're a relatively small developer and it was a fairly ambitious project, since Bannerlord/Mount and Blade generally has a lot of little moving parts, interacting systems, that more simplistic gameplay doesn't.

Anyone thinking this game is some sort of disaster or scandal is deluded or has very little experience with the gaming industry.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Making a trailer that looks like it could be from a complete game is both easy and common for game companies.

It's not easy or particularly common to imitate gameplay. As someone who's tried it myself, making a game is actually a bit easier than making something fake that looks like a game, for the exact same reasons that making 1 hour of cutscene is harder than making 1 hour of gameplay. A lot of the notorious "fake" trailers like rome 2 and no man's sky were actually just gameplay with some scripted stuff to make the game look better. Rone 2 is a good example because if you watch the trailer closely you can actually see the bugs.

From what I've read, the 2016 gameplay was basically playable, and most of the assets had already been made, but they kept tweaking and redoing different elements like the UI and level system and other high level stuff like that. Armagan wanted everything to be perfect and kept scrapping stuff, he even admitted to this in an interview. This combined with an unclear vision, multiple directors pulling the design in different directions, slow development and poor office structure, and only a handful of truly skilled people, is why it took so long to sidegrade from 2016 to now.

 

[anoddhermit]

It's not easy or particularly common to imitate gameplay. As someone who's tried it myself, making a game is actually a bit easier than making something fake that looks like a game, for the exact same reasons that making 1 hour of cutscene is harder than making 1 hour of gameplay. A lot of the notorious "fake" trailers like rome 2 and no man's sky were actually just gameplay with some scripted stuff to make the game look better. Rone 2 is a good example because if you watch the trailer closely you can actually see the bugs.

From what I've read, the 2016 gameplay was basically playable, and most of the assets had already been made, but they kept tweaking and redoing different elements like the UI and level system and other high level stuff like that. Armagan wanted everything to be perfect and kept scrapping stuff, he even admitted to this in an interview. This combined with an unclear vision, multiple directors pulling the design in different directions, slow development and poor office structure, and only a handful of truly skilled people, is why it took so long to sidegrade from 2016 to now.

Recording an hour of gameplay =/= making the game that 1 hour occurs in, so your cutscene vs. gameplay comparision makes no sense as an analogy to me. They may have taken longer due to indecisiveness, I wouldn't doubt that on its own, but I played multiple iterations of the beta and there were substantial improvements between them. It definitely wasn't mostly complete in 2016. I don't know what "basically playable" means, but there were a lot of bugs and AI failing spectacularly to function in various scenarios early on. Not all of the changes were "tweaks" either - making the battle and fief scences reflect the structure of the campaign map, for example.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Recording an hour of gameplay =/= making the game that 1 hour occurs in,

In both cases you have to make the assets and animations. The difference with a cutscene is that you have to animate everything individually, including moving the player character and AI around in a way that looks believable, whereas with gameplay you can set up a basic player controller and some AI and make as much gameplay footage as you want.

It depends on the game of course, but in a game like bannerlord with thousands of moving parts, it would be a massive waste of time to try to "fake" it just for one trailer. Even in CGI films with lots of characters moving about, they actually create something like a game engine to handle all of it.

I am currently making a large scale RTS game of my own, and I wanted to fake a trailer and some screenshots of the assets just to put in the steam page. But it took so long to make fake AI paths compared to just making a working AI that I ditched the idea and just made the game mechanics as intended.

but I played multiple iterations of the beta and there were substantial improvements between them. It definitely wasn't mostly complete in 2016. I don't know what "basically playable" means, but there were a lot of bugs and AI failing spectacularly to function in various scenarios early on.

This is because certain parts of the game actually regressed during that time. The troop collision is better in the 2016 one, but you can't push past your own guys as easily. They actually did this intentionally. Cavalry charges are worse now too, that was also intentional. The melee in the 2016 videos even sounds better, has more responsive melee animations, and is better lit than what we have now, despite being virtually unchanged in almost everything else. Even the 2015 video, while just a showcase of some random siege stuff, is clearly a real game, and what's there is basically identical to the current game, just with lots more ambient lighting. If you turned down the ambient light in the 2015 video I don't think you'd be able to tell it was from 2015.

 

[Bluko88]

I know this has been brought up before a lot of times, but I still cannot help going back to this question time and time again. It's like a mystery I can't wrap my head around.
I started following the development of Bannerlord back in 2015, when I also first discovered and played Warband. That's when I first stumbled across the 2015 promotional video:




So much seemed to already be done by then, and a lot of it still looks the same today. Some of it even looked better in my opinion (map, non-matching troops). The changes over the following years were most notably UI and map changes. Given I know almost nothing about game development, seven years of development seems a long time for just that. Why couldn't it have gone into early access sooner? What really happened at TW between 2015 until now?

Did they lose developers? Was it the console version?

I want to stress that I'm really not trying to bash TW – I'm just genuinely curious about what happened. Does anyone know?

Wow that's pretty frightening all that was there in 2015, like 7 years ago.

I was always assumed the 2016/2017 footage was heavily edited/scripted. Only thing that stands out as bad in this footage is the ludicrous run speeds. There must have been some kind of talent upheaval, would explain a lot of things, why development is so slow and stagnant. Also probably why a lot of game features basically don't get touched either. Some heavy lifters probably left, so even with other veterans still around, probably a lot of time is/was wasted trying to figure out how others did things. Loss of talent can be crippling in any field/industry.

A bit annoyed to see this too, cause I read smithing was a last minute edition. Obviously more baloney since if nothing else it existed in some kind of prototype phase all the way back in 2015 there.


Also what happened to weather? You know like rain clearly shown here. Good grief

 

[benli11]

Wow that's pretty frightening all that was there in 2015, like 7 years ago.

I was always assumed the 2016/2017 footage was heavily edited/scripted. Only thing that stands out as bad in this footage is the ludicrous run speeds. There must have been some kind of talent upheaval, would explain a lot of things, why development is so slow and stagnant. Also probably why a lot of game features basically don't get touched either. Some heavy lifters probably left, so even with other veterans still around, probably a lot of time is/was wasted trying to figure out how others did things. Loss of talent can be crippling in any field/industry.

A bit annoyed to see this too, cause I read smithing was a last minute edition. Obviously more baloney since if nothing else it existed in some kind of prototype phase all the way back in 2015 there.


Also what happened to weather? You know like rain clearly shown here. Good grief

Rain exist in game code. Not sure why taleword disable it. (can be a copyright issue or performance issue or stability issue.) In one version one modder activated it.
If i remember correct devs changed engine 2 or 3 times. Every time they changed engine devolepmend go back 1-2 years. I think they made a lot of bad calls at early development stage.

 

[Kissaki]

Changing seasons...

 

[Gundabad]

A bit annoyed to see this too, cause I read smithing was a last minute edition. Obviously more baloney since if nothing else it existed in some kind of prototype phase all the way back in 2015 there.

I believe the smithing "mini game" was added last minute but the crafting feature has always been there. Initially, items were crafted by the blacksmith for gold, as can be seen at 14:39 in the video below:



As far as I'm concerned, this feature really should have co-existed along with the smithing perk.

 

[SixRibbons]

Why did they even switched to uniform colors for troops? It's eye bothering and immersion breaking.

 

[Gundabad]

From what I've read, the 2016 gameplay was basically playable, and most of the assets had already been made, but they kept tweaking and redoing different elements like the UI and level system and other high level stuff like that. Armagan wanted everything to be perfect and kept scrapping stuff, he even admitted to this in an interview. This combined with an unclear vision, multiple directors pulling the design in different directions, slow development and poor office structure, and only a handful of truly skilled people, is why it took so long to sidegrade from 2016 to now.

Sounds very reasonable to me.

It feels to me (no facts, just thoughts here) that they changed their mind on what they wanted the game to be in the middle of the development process, shifting focus towards the clan aspect of the game. I think they originally had in mind just to make a Warband 2.0 with improved graphics and nice extra features, but kept adding more stuff in that wasn't meant to be there in the first place and it just got out of hand eventually.
It really does strike me as two games in one the more I think about it. The weird mix between Warband playstyle and Clan dynasty gameplay. As far as I'm concerned it should have been two separate games/game modes – one classic Warband and one Clan dynasty gameplay.

Anyone thinking this game is some sort of disaster or scandal is deluded or has very little experience with the gaming industry.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a disaster by any means. It's truly a marvelous thing to be able command 1000 troops on the battlefield, all with individual AI. That alone makes it a pioneering experience.

 

[Gundabad]

Why did they even switched to uniform colors for troops? It's eye bothering and immersion breaking.

Yes, it looked considerably better in earlier versions imo. The matching colours gives it an almost arcade game vibe.

 

[vito397]

Yes, it looked considerably better in earlier versions imo. The matching colours gives it an almost arcade game vibe.

It looks like a football match. Recently Duh commented that theyre "reevaluating" or revisiting the item colouring. I asked him if it would be the end of the monochrome tyranny but he would not answer. But truly, somethings in the works!

As for your main question. It is something i have asked myself several times on this thread. Some speculated, including me, that there was a "design team" completely uninterested in the game and was advising based on the most popular marketing design, as in what was appealing to the widest of audiences. This is apparently not true, duh said theres no "suits" running the show. Its the devs. So it is weird to me to pick such designs. Theres also speculations that armagan and some guy who was in charge of the RPG side of the game had a fight around 2016. He left and his content was axed. Still unconfirmed though

 

[Apocal]

Why did they even switched to uniform colors for troops? It's eye bothering and immersion breaking.

Yes, it looked considerably better in earlier versions imo. The matching colours gives it an almost arcade game vibe.

Glance value.

Why that was considered important was probably for the same reason a bunch of weapons suck for no real reason and armor doesn't do as much: multiplayer.

 

[Wojciech Bator]

Yeah, TBH - I also got hyped back in 2016. Watching this trailer from now I can see that things like lightning/global illumination (I don't mean shadows), troops and melee animations were even better than they are now. Hard to tell why it deteriorated, troops change is a design choice, lightning could be related to some performance. They will probably introduce seasons and replay mode at some time, as they promised that long time ago. Ceasing that would be unprofessional and they are well aware of that.

I left this game after some time of playing. It seems they also focused a lot on making balanced world simulation with distributed strength and that works, but is very empty and lacking the balls in the longer run. I wait for total conversion mods like western, GoT or late medieval ones for immersion.

Kudos to game engine team for great optimization, you guys are brilliant. Good job on world simulation and balance of powers too. Good job on scenes. A big BOO to unused potential, lack of immersion, lack of character, poor design choices and bland, repeative gameplay.

 

[geala]

Why did they even switched to uniform colors for troops? It's eye bothering and immersion breaking.

It helps if you play without the faction markers. For me floating big signs above the heads of my or the enemy troops are massively less immersive than uniform colors on the items. I even often disable the HUD for more immersion btw (wish there were a button for it). It could perhaps be made a bit less uniform, maybe troops could wear ribbons or other signs on their equipment (as in reality) but that would make additional changes necessary.

 

[vito397]

They will probably introduce seasons and replay mode at some time, as they promised that long time ago. Ceasing that would be unprofessional and they are well aware of that.

But they already have seasons?

 

[babelfisch]

How was the campaign gameplay in the trailer? Not existant.
For everything else they showed only one thing and not the dozens of variations that exist today. How good was the gameplay loop between the different scenes we saw in the trailer? Was anything actually connected as a working game? What about bugs, performance, support of various configurations and platforms?
They only show the stuff that works in a trailer, and often that stuff only works with tricks until a mechanic is fully implemented. It's not like they picked some random scenes from an already working game.

A scene from a siege didn't happen dynamically like it does today. If they wanted to show siege footage they probably had to handcraft it.

 

[Wojciech Bator]

But they already have seasons?

Yeah, summer and winter. No weather effects and full, realistic cycle, as it was presented.

 

[Farticle]

It would be so cool if Sturgia had general winter on their side and had special advantages in the snow. Factions in general need to have things that make them unique. Maybe Aserai could get advantages in the desert and vice versa for other factions. I don't know there's so much that could be cool but just isn't right now.