Taleworlds, where is the Transparency & Communication? :(

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5 million copies sold, and with the influx of new gamers we get to deal with this shi*.

10~12 year veteran fans are staying calm and patient, and the newbies screaming entitlement.

**sigh**
Influx of new gamers =/= screaming entitlement from the same demographic. I have been a fan for nearly a decade, yet I agree with OP that maybe the devs could open up some more on dedicated threads instead of individually replying about their updates.

Example:
Also, in what world does 10-12 year veteran fans have to do with a product that EVERYONE shares? There is absolutely no relevance, so using that as a means to uphold your own opinion is quite egregious.
There is no statistical evidence, that I know of, which implies "good forum communication equals development success."

Games are mass media products. It is not designing a dishwasher or toilet or TV. It is creating a work that is closer to books, movies, or music. And there have been works that have succeeded in spite of zero mass input and there has been failures that have been focus-grouped to death.

That being said, it doesn't really change how good or crappy the game will be. It is just a bottle of milk for the loudest.
I do agree that forum communication isn't a deciding factor for game success but just look at the pinned beta updates that they put out. A large portion of feedback/bug reports stem from forum users, and the devs act majorly upon our findings. If we use the mass media example, we are kind of like the editors on the forums that simply wish to understand the vision of the product so we can properly dissect it and rid out the bugs. We are in EA, this is totally different from games(mainstream AAA especially) that just throw out the content, TW themselves are relying on us, and if you actually read through the forums, you will find they have been individually discussing with threads that have legitimate bugs and adding that onto their list while sharing their works.

Please refer to the OP and understand that unless you are lucky while browsing, searching active developer names is the most efficient way to see what the devs are working on, and more importantly, areas we can help test ourselves.
 
Meh

I've been reading dev blogs for the past few years, I'm personally just happy for Taleworlds to knuckle down now and focus on the actual game.
 
A large portion of feedback/bug reports stem from forum users, and the devs act majorly upon our findings. I
Only for singleplayer. We're approaching a year of play time for some people since a handful got invited to the closed beta. 90% of problems reported in that time are still here after almost a year. The devs are not acting, even a small amount, upon community findings.
 
This weekend was a holiday break for them and pretty much everyone else in that country, communicating with us would benefit the playerbase but people need to chill lol

Quarantine testiness working overtime
 
5 million copies sold, and with the influx of new gamers we get to deal with this shi*.

10~12 year veteran fans are staying calm and patient, and the newbies screaming entitlement.

**sigh**


That's... alot of money they just made. 5 million copies at $40 a pop is like 1/5 of a billion dollars.

They are hardly an indie studio when pulling that kind of profit, and it's OKAY to expect more.
 
Well open communication has never been a TW thing... Which is a bit of a shame..
Also it's a bit hard to know what to suggest if they don't tell us what's coming up.
 
Taleworlds, It's the age of the internet and instant-communication, there's no reason any development studio, no matter how small, shouldn't be able to provide us with communication. I'm not expecting a reply to every forum thread but asides from manually searching for one or two posts from Callum and other members, we have no idea what to expect.

We don't even need a fully fledged roadmap, maybe a weekly post telling us what each department is currently working on?

Look at Star Citizen's roadmap and Dev blogs, Robert Space Industries is purely transparent due to community funding, so people will dump loads of money into the game and keep faith in the developers. Bannerlord is not community funded but why should that stop our community from receiving a similar treatment?
+1 , some companies do this really well, and it lets us know the communication is going through, and the community is being heard.

Simply implementing some features at a "popularity" style request through the forums is a little bit BS. Some companies do formal polling, pushed through the steam news feed.

But most of all -> roadmap. WTF are they working on? Is it what the community wants? That's why we shelled out big money for this (very) unfinished product - to contribute to the development.
 
That's... alot of money they just made. 5 million copies at $40 a pop is like 1/5 of a billion dollars.

They are hardly an indie studio when pulling that kind of profit, and it's OKAY to expect more.
They have always been an indie studio. TW just happened to find a popular and successful formula that attracted more profit and attention than they can handle. Stop treating this as a AAA game would help a lot to adjust your expectation. It's a small indie game developed by a small indie studio.
 
In no shape or form, we are "stakeholders". We are as much as a stakeholder as a coffee drinker is a stakeholder of Starbucks.
There is no statistical evidence, that I know of, which implies "good forum communication equals development success."

Games are mass media products. It is not designing a dishwasher or toilet or TV. It is creating a work that is closer to books, movies, or music. And there have been works that have succeeded in spite of zero mass input and there has been failures that have been focus-grouped to death.

I do want to state since the developer opened this forum, it is inevitable that they provide some form of feedback. That being said, it doesn't really change how good or crappy the game will be. It is just a bottle of milk for the loudest.
Factually, we are stakeholders. In case you don't understand what a stakeholder is, a stakeholder is anyone who is affected by a business. So yes, we, the customers, are very much considered stakeholder. That is inarguable. And fyi, a coffee drinker who drink Starbucks' coffee is also very much 100% a stakeholder.

As you said, games are like movies, there are works that have succeeded with no input. But for some reason you forgot the fact that there's a massive amount of failed products, ranging from movies to books or music, because there's no mean for mass feedback and suggestion. Movies and books are doom to either success or fail on release, but games are different, it can be improved and worked on even when it's released to the public. What do you think Early Access is for?

That said, there are literally TONS of games that became a success because feedback from players. It's called constructive feedback, and it can massively affect how good or bad a game can be. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.
 
Early access ends up with the same communication as the beta period. :sleep:
I very much appreciate mexxico's posts though, the only small glimpse behind the scenes we get currently.
 
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This is normal for Taleworlds. I remember when I first heard that they were working on a sequel to Warband. Years passed. Then this early access came out. Now here we are. I remember back when I was excited and waiting for the sequel to Warband, I would check their blog, I would scour the internet for details on what the developments were. I found nothing, and then I just gave up and moved along. Some companies don't really say much. Look at the developers of No Mans Sky. They went silent and now they follow a philosophy where they don't say much, they just quietly work on their game and occasionally release a nice flashy update. It works for them.
 
Factually, we are stakeholders. In case you don't understand what a stakeholder is, a stakeholder is anyone who is affected by a business. So yes, we, the customers, are very much considered stakeholder. That is inarguable. And fyi, a coffee drinker who drink Starbucks' coffee is also very much 100% a stakeholder.

As you said, games are like movies, there are works that have succeeded with no input. But for some reason you forgot the fact that there's a massive amount of failed products, ranging from movies to books or music, because there's no mean for mass feedback and suggestion. Movies and books are doom to either success or fail on release, but games are different, it can be improved and worked on even when it's released to the public. What do you think Early Access is for?

That said, there are literally TONS of games that became a success because feedback from players. It's called constructive feedback, and it can massively affect how good or bad a game can be. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

+1 I think we are in a way stakeholders by particapting to this Early Access, we are affected by the business as it is was mentioned and theoretically we also affect them via our suggestions and constructive critisism.
As a customer, as a player and as a human it is sometimes important to feel that your voice is being heard or at least being informed about the state or the intentions of the developer. This can help the company and the player to develop trust between them. Trust cam lead to specific and quality feedback and vice versa. We can even call it open innovation if the term is acceptable.
So feedback is extremely important and can dictate the progress of a product or service.
 
Influx of new gamers =/= screaming entitlement from the same demographic. I have been a fan for nearly a decade, yet I agree with OP that maybe the devs could open up some more on dedicated threads instead of individually replying about their updates.

That's the main thing. It makes absolutely no sense for devs to come answer individual posts instead of having an official development thread. It's dispersive, inefficient, and it makes it difficult for people to find the answers they are looking for ("why are they not fixing perks???" keeps popping up on the forum despite @Callum 's statement that they are working on it, just because that post is buried in a thread somewhere instead of being in a sticky, dedicated development thread).
 
That's the main thing. It makes absolutely no sense for devs to come answer individual posts instead of having an official development thread. It's dispersive, inefficient, and it makes it difficult for people to find the answers they are looking for ("why are they not fixing perks???" keeps popping up on the forum despite @Callum 's statement that they are working on it, just because that post is buried in a thread somewhere instead of being in a sticky, dedicated development thread).

this +1000000
 
It would be nice to know if a thing is a bug or just not yet implemented, so I know when to do a bug report and when to just wait patiently.

I don't need to know exactly what goes on behind the scenes, but something like a general to-do list would be useful.
 
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