To anyone who says "Buggy mess after 8 years"

[Brocephus]

First of all, don't promote low expectations simply because this is a Turkish company. This franchise has an established history and they are no longer just a small indy shop. There is plenty of talent at TW. Time to wear big boy pants.

Most of us have moved on past the problem that it is a buggy mess (although that is not great) to being disappointed in two things: Progress and communications. These are functions of leadership. A lot of us come from the software industry and we can see what is going on here from the tell-tale signs.

 

[froggyluv]

Whats the point of this detective work? To find reasons for poor management? Every strength has a flip-side of coin weakness. To me Armagon's strength was his initial development of sword and board - done on a physics model and instinctively right way for the first time ever. Perhaps its his own slow and methodical way of developing that produced what is IMO the gold standard of medieval fighting games but at the cost of developing everything on his timescale alone.I remember reading on a programmer employment site about an ex-taleworlds employee stating
Pros: Great developing community
Cons: Very very slow timetable

 

[Septimius Tullius]

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think that there is one fact that would seem to make most of your arguments not apply: They have a game, it just has some content holes.
If they had been stuck making their engine for 8 years, or using a pre-made engine, sure, I could believe that there is enough inexperience in the Turkish coding community and people being discouraged from following a career of game development that there might be some explanation behind the delays.

Also, if this was a fact, a post by Armagan a couple of years ago or so explaining their situation would have been nice.

 

[Errayn]

Buggy mess after 8 years

 

[sniparsexe]

First of all, don't promote low expectations simply because this is a Turkish company. This franchise has an established history and they are no longer just a small indy shop. There is plenty of talent at TW. Time to wear big boy pants.

Most of us have moved on past the problem that it is a buggy mess (although that is not great) to being disappointed in two things: Progress and communications. These are functions of leadership. A lot of us come from the software industry and we can see what is going on here from the tell-tale signs.

Yes, I also mentioned communication. It isn't about company, it is about know-how.

Whats the point of this detective work? To find reasons for poor management? Every strength has a flip-side of coin weakness. To me Armagon's strength was his initial development of sword and board - done on a physics model and instinctively right way for the first time ever. Perhaps its his own slow and methodical way of developing that produced what is IMO the gold standard of medieval fighting games but at the cost of developing everything on his timescale alone.I remember reading on a programmer employment site about an ex-taleworlds employee stating
Pros: Great developing community
Cons: Very very slow timetable

To analyze slow progression, to find reasons why TW couldn't achieve more than this in 8 years. It might be his way of developing. But armagan himself says there aren't enough know-how so te

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think that there is one fact that would seem to make most of your arguments not apply: They have a game, it just has some content holes.
If they had been stuck making their engine for 8 years, or using a pre-made engine, sure, I could believe that there is enough inexperience in the Turkish coding community and people being discouraged from following a career of game development that there might be some explanation behind the delays.

Also, if this was a fact, a post by Armagan a couple of years ago or so explaining their situation would have been nice.

I think they finished the engine in early 2015, but again not enough know-how so developing the game took so long.

 

[pindabeep]

Buggy mess after 8 years. and let me guess: you are Turkish or a big fan of them. also, that's not a excuse, look at CD Projekt.

 

[sniparsexe]

Buggy mess after 8 years and let me guess: you are Turkish or a big fan of them. also, that's not a excuse, look at CD Projekt.

Did you even read the thread? I'm Turkish but I literally said things about Turkish people being bigot and other bad things, also stated communication problem and slow pace problem. There are over 1100 employees working at CDPR right now do you really think it is fair to compare them?

 

[pindabeep]

Did you even read the thread? I'm Turkish but I literally said things about Turkish people being bigot and other bad things, also stated communication problem and slow pace problem. There are over 1100 employees working at CDPR right now do you really think it is fair to compare them?

Now it makes sense why you made this thread. also, CDPR got where they are because they made good games. TW and CDPR pretty much started at the same level, they just took different paths.

 

[NPC99]

What does it matter how long development has taken? IMO it would only matter if a competitor to TW was making a better game faster. I haven’t seen one that captures my interest. Apart from Warband/WFaS, Bannerlord appears to be the only viable medieval sandbox game I can buy. Is it finished? No, but the Developers are committed to finishing it. I would love it to be finished and mod tools to be available now, but I might as well wish for dreams to come true. In the real world, we will have to wait while the Developers work their socks off to catch up with our punishing expectations.

 

[MostBlunted]

I don´t care. They sell a game for 49€ and they don´t deliver anything.

"This is a generic post". Their writers also seem to be busy on reworking the code. LOL.

 

[COOMER]

It's been 3 months.
Still waiting for perks to work. Officially.
Modders did it in the first week or so.

 

[cyresdog]

Now it makes sense why you made this thread. also, CDPR got where they are because they made good games. TW and CDPR pretty much started at the same level, they just took different paths.

Even tho i am really unsatisfied rn with TW at the moment because of Bannerlords state, and 8-9 into development after charging money for the game they are like "Yo let us rewrite almost the entire code lul" CDPR and TW have not started at the same level.
CDPR started with just translating games, then they began with GOG (Good Old Games) which made them enough money to develop their own games. Till to the point when they released Witcher 3. So pretty much the first 2 stages they just had to translate things/patch games to run on newer machines.
While TW afaik did start as a Developer with their very own game. Nonetheless Bannerlord is a mess rn. And the only reason people still play is because of the love to Warband and the Modding Community.

 

[SirTexasSir]

That was very interesting and informative. I've been to Turkey and was quite impressed with the culture and the people. I get the feeling that the Turks are a complicated and often misunderstood people.
Anyway, thankyou for writing this. It was really enjoyable to read.

I think a lot of folks don't think of culture. I would put Turkey as one of those country's that still has a lot of old world culture going on and not so much new modern world. It can be some times hard for folks to relate to changes when they are so use to old ways. Also folks don't understand game design doesn't happen over night. Even the cookie cutter games that area pretty much same game with new skins or story that get pump out every 2 years. They are just coping it over and over with a few tweaks (COD any one? or the several dozen battle royal games out there?)

Also remember folks that this company still small but a company that needs different employees for different jobs, so a lot of there employees aren't programmers but have other duties. Not to mention you have to higher janitors, secretaries, accountants and other folks that have nothing to do with gaming at all so that full number of employees is not all programmers and developers.

 

[JustinTime49]

This is very informative, and I respect your defense of your people(guess).

Despite this, I still struggle to sympathize when this "inexperienced" team sells its product for $60CAD. Furthermore, I wouldn't be anywhere near as disappointed in the product if it weren't for the fact that three months into this EA, modders with unofficial modding tools are creating content that builds so much more on top of the lifeless land that is Calradia ATM.

Also saying sandbox games are harder than linear games comes off quite ignorant, because sandbox games rely on gameplay to make or break the stories, whereas players are relying on a set story to immerse them, meaning writers need to create a story that will attract many and be the forefront, higher than gameplay and visuals(TLOU2). Look at WB, if I'm not wrong it was developed by Armagan and his very very small team, and despite their limitations, the gameplay was more than enough to keep people coming to Calradia and its parallels in the form of mods. BL's storytelling, on the other hand, is objectively poorly written with tasks of tedium. I know its incomplete, but what we have now is very bad, with an idea that as soon as we destroy the enemies of whoever you choose, the game finishes. It gives off an idea where if you follow the main story, that is how you will win.

Radio silence too does not help, especially when considering the finds that much of the game is being rewritten or is commented out.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Depends on your psychology, it can get you. As I said I have a friend who stopped making games after hearing so many "back in my day" no he isn't mad or crazy, he doesn't like hearing those kinds of things so just stopped making games.

I have a friend who stopped making games after hearing so many "back in my day", it depends on your psychology.

That's great. We can add that sentence as an example in textbook definitions of the words "unambitious" and "unmotivated".
I don't know about you but those traits, in a company developing a highly ambitious product, don't give me the impression they'll present satisfactory results. TW needs ambitious developers or "students", wimps who quit following their aspirations because some grandma told them they shouldn't, shouldn't partake in the development of such a highly ambitious, yet achievable project. If those are the people taking part in the development, well then that's a mistake, and that mistake is on Armağan, or whoever's managing the developer team.

Are we really doing this?

What are we doing?

"Nearly all parents I've come across have kept up with the times" this is also why I said, "we are breaking this bias very fast". You are speaking about 2020 or after 2012. Anyone who is working on bannerlord since 2012 is born in at least 1990's. which also affects know-how because in 1990's most of the people were more bigot (no politics) than today and didn't want their children to make games.

If you're already into coding and video game development industry in Turkey since the 2000's and decided to take it up as a vocation, chances are you already don't care much what the family or mainstream view on your hobbies is, believe me I'd know and I do.
And people who did were curious and ambitious, (those two traits alone increase your chance of qualification and success two-fold) you can see this in all developed / developing nations, as the golden age of video games began it became mainstream, hence it's not such a taboo anymore. If anything your argument makes the new generation of "developer / students" sound like ridiciliously sensitive and unambitious snowflakes, which is a theory I wouldn't take out of the equation given the state of the game, lol.

 

[guiskj]

I'll accept OP's point of lack of game developer experience. What I do not except, and I hope TW improves on, is the lack of Software Management exertise and Community Management expertise.

The latter can be easily learned by successful gaming companies. Im particularly impressed by CK3 dev diaries.

The former is a skill that is applicable to ALL software development. I'm a software architect consultant and I have worked on all sorts of software projects, including the corrent one which is a 150 milion US dollar contract. Good Software Management skills are applicable accross the spectrum of software development, and if you don't have the know-how in-house, HIRE CONSULTANTS (cases like these are the whole reason we even exist)

 

[sanalaismine]

The thing is I gave Warband a go recently and there is a huge gap on feeling of the game world. BL works wonders for me in the atmosphere perspective. And I'm shocked at the improvement of graphics, feel of combat.

Aside that I for one am one of the older and odder people of gaming who gives very little importance to visuals. I'd rather have gameplay content which BL falls short ATM. To add visually beautiful and believable atmosphere, BL needs lots of interaction and politics both internal and external like counsels, diplomatic missions, alliance system and rational decisions from AI. Not to mention feasts and celebrations.

Fief management also needs to be deeper. Castles need some intimidating meaning. Maybe have bigger garrisons and a scout unit which is dispatched to question enemy party and if your charm fails they have the garrison descend upon you. These would make the world feel alive.

For the OP, I'm one of those people whose degree in Economics but have a great interest on coding. I self-studied coding to a reasonable level in which I could design very basic games and was literate on a few coding languages. I tried to find a starting point but unable to do that due to mentioned reasons. I happen to be a Turk as well.

Although those observations are true, it's obviously not an excuse for TW who has a game with great interest and that game has a fair bit of price tag. They are supposed to set the bar for Turkey for new game companies. They could have been more prepared and proffessional on technicalities, communication and timelines. That being said, I still think this is not a complete disaster as opposed to some people. The game is pretty for sure, they got that covered. Now it needs all the content it can get to be a great game and I hope they can deliver it faster than snail pace beacuse surely they earned enough money to hire more people now.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

If you're already into coding and video game development industry in Turkey since the 2000's and decided to take it up as a vocation, chances are you already don't care much what the family or mainstream view on your hobbies is, believe me I'd know and I do.
And people who did were curious and ambitious, (those two traits alone increase your chance of qualification and success two-fold) you can see this in all developed / developing nations, as the golden age of video games began it became mainstream, hence it's not such a taboo anymore. If anything your argument makes the new generation of "developer / students" sound like ridiciliously sensitive and unambitious snowflakes, which is a theory I wouldn't take out of the equation given the state of the game, lol.

People often make this argument without fully understanding how strong social pressure can be. It's not just a few people telling you not to go into game development, it's an entire cultural assumption that prevents many people from even thinking about it in the first place. Game Development in the west was at worst seen as "evil" by a few fringe reactionaries for a few years in the 1990s, while in developing nations it's practically been the same level of scorn as prostitution is in America for many middle class families (i.e. the only people rich enough to afford the education). How else would you explain the fact that countries like Indonesia, India and Nigeria have only made a small handful of video games, despite having had massive pools of coders for decades now?

Even in the UK where I live, none of the South Asian or African people I know would have even considered doing anything other than a STEM or Business related job because of parental pressure. It's not as easy as just saying "nuh uh" in a family structure which has that much social authority, which is how most of the developing world is.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

People often make this argument without fully understanding how strong social pressure can be. It's not just a few people telling you not to go into game development, it's an entire cultural assumption that prevents many people from even thinking about it in the first place. Game Development in the west was at worst seen as "evil" by a few fringe reactionaries for a few years in the 1990s, while in developing nations it's practically been the same level of scorn as prostitution is in America for many middle class families (i.e. the only people rich enough to afford the education). How else would you explain the fact that countries like Indonesia, India and Nigeria have only made a small handful of video games, despite having had massive pools of coders for decades now?

We can discuss psychology and sociology if you want but that won't change the fact that those examples and reasonings don't exactly work in the case of Turkey.

 

[eddiemccandless]

That's great. We can add that sentence as an example in textbook definitions of the words "unambitious" and "unmotivated".
I don't know about you but those traits, in a company developing a highly ambitious product, don't give me the impression they'll present satisfactory results. TW needs ambitious developers or "students", wimps who quit following their aspirations because some grandma told them they shouldn't, shouldn't partake in the development of such a highly ambitious, yet achievable project. If those are the people taking part in the development, well then that's a mistake, and that mistake is on Armağan, or whoever's managing the developer team.

If you're already into coding and video game development industry in Turkey since the 2000's and decided to take it up as a vocation, chances are you already don't care much what the family or mainstream view on your hobbies is, believe me I'd know and I do.
And people who did were curious and ambitious, (those two traits alone increase your chance of qualification and success two-fold) you can see this in all developed / developing nations, as the golden age of video games began it became mainstream, hence it's not such a taboo anymore. If anything your argument makes the new generation of "developer / students" sound like ridiciliously sensitive and unambitious snowflakes, which is a theory I wouldn't take out of the equation given the state of the game, lol.

I think you are missing the point. If the general culture pushes people away from coding, perfectly intelligent and capable people will be more inclined to go, say, to business school, instead of writing code for a game. This limits the pool of candidates that TW can choose from, and they might end up hiring anyone with minimal coding skills who is willing to come work for them. And keep in mind that the team that is developing Bannerlord now is not the same one that was working on the original Mount and Blade. They had to get a lot of new blood in a relatively short time to develop this game. And in those circumstances you can't exactly only look for the cream of the crop game developers your country has. Especially since there's a good chance that many of the really good people will leave the country to try their luck somewhere else where the pay is higher and the opportunities are better.

One could argue that they could hire from abroad, and I actually think that some developers in the team are not Turkish. But then you have someone in the team who does not speak Turkish, working together with people that don't have great English speaking abilities. Add to this that perhaps these foreign workers will need a visa of some kind to be able to work legally in Turkey. It can get messy as well.

All of this to say, OP has a point, and he lives there and knows the situation better than people who do not. That said, I would argue that a few years should be enough to at least figure out the management part of things. If after more than five years you are still kind of flaying around and scrapping a lot of the work that you are doing, you should have a long and hard look at yourself and reassess your methods to try and figure out what went wrong. Still we are not there, we don't know exactly what is going on, so at the end of the day all we can do is evaluate the game and how it evolves through time.

@Kentucky James VII also raises good points, as he usually does . What makes you think that what he says does not apply to Turkey?