To anyone who says "Buggy mess after 8 years"

[Mardochaios]

...

Not to be a stickler but I'm pretty sure Turkey is a European country, despite what some people probably would want you to think.

 

[kreamy]

This is gonna be a very long post and I'm not a native English speaker so there will be mistakes, If there is a part you can't understand let me know

So, why TW couldn't finish their work in 8 years?! Let's start.

Taleworlds is located in Middle East Technical University which is located in Ankara, Turkey. You are probably saying "and ?" rn.

A) Coding in Turkey: First of all please don't make politics. In Turkey coding is much harder than coding in a European country, no not because Turkish people are stupid and can't learn to code. Because coding is a kinda new thing in Turkey and although we break that bias still there are many people who say "Why people are earning money from writing something while sitting, can't they just be a teacher or something?" Yes, there are people like this in all countries but in Turkey, there are just more, not like 30-40 million (There are 82 million people living in Turkey btw) but I can say at least 5 or 10 million people because they think coding is too easy for being a job or coding isn't a reliable job. As I said we are breaking this bias very fast also government support coding and encouraging kids to learn how to code

B) Gaming in Turkey: There are many people in Turkey who think like gaming is what stupid people do. They are the people who think coding isn't a job but there are also people who consider coding a job and respect to that but hates games. There are at least 10 million people who will say "Are you still playing games?" or "Go read some books don't play games" or something like these when they see you playing games (though we are also breaking this bias very fast since most of the children is already playing mobile games etc.) and it is RIGHT NOW. In like 2012 it was like 25 million. So what about MAKING games, now I'm not sure about this one but I think there are at least 6 million people who will make fun of you when you say "I'm making games" again we are breaking this bias very fast.

Now how this correlates with the process of developing isn't that important, A and B are important but not as important as C, they affect C. But A and B is mostly about losing your passion about coding, there are more people that will say "go find a real job" when you say "I'll make games"
so that can cause you to lose your passion for coding which affects mostly C.

C) Know-How. As I said coding is kinda new in Turkey and making games is like that too. Armagan himself says there isn't know-how in Turkey. They know how to code theoretically but not practically, There are 100 employees at the TW RN but I'm pretty sure half of the coders are students who are still learning how to code. Armagan himself says so. He says our friends (employees) learning while making the game we also learn how to manage while we make the game. So basically Armagan is also learning how to manage, they are INEXPERIENCED


Time to check the structure of Bannerlord.

Bannerlord is a SANDBOX game.

A) Making sandbox games is harder than making linear games. There are limitless ways to play Bannerlord, I think I can say making a sandbox game is at least 10x harder than making a linear game.

B) Bug checking in sandbox games is pretty hard since there isn't a way to play, bug checking is pretty hard

There are other things that make making sandbox games harder, I'm not gonna write all of them, I can at least write like 10-15 additional reasons. Now combine making a sandbox game without enough know-how. Imagine you are a student who is learning how to code and wanted to make a game. When you say which companies are making games, in Turkey I don't think there is a big gaming studio except for TW. So students choose TW. This is like an indie studio trying to make a game like GTA, biting off more than one can chew. Don't forget there isn't a bigger studio than TW when it comes to gaming in Turkey (there may be in mobile gaming though not sure) so saying "I'm working at Taleworlds and making Mount&Blade" is like saying "I'm working at Rockstar and making GTA" in Turkey among your friends. and bannerlord is one of the biggest sandbox games out there.

Now, the classical "They made their own engine!" line. I found a video where I think a channel whose sponsor is Taleworlds (yep I just checked it) visits Taleworlds studio, the video is a little bit cringy but someone added English subtitles so you can watch it here the interesting part in this video is this, now check the date Jun 5, 2014, 2+ years after they announced Bannerlord. after 3:27 Senior Developer basically says we are developing our engine, which I think means they didn't finish the engine. I couldn't find it but I can swear I saw a video and in that video, a dude said we are developing our engine, I can't remember the date but I think it was early 2015. So I think we can say Bannerlord isn't in serious development for 8 years but in serious development for around 5 years still long but shorter (can a dev confirm/deny this?)

Also there is a communication problem between the devs and player base, I'm not gonna comment about this one, but communication problem is one of the biggest reason bannerlords status. Players like @Noudelle @Gab etc. gave incredible feedbacks in beta IIRC they didn't even get an answer.

Thanks for reading, again I'm not a native English speaker so there are probably lots of mistakes, if there is a part you can't understand let me know (I'll probably edit this thread if more comes to my mind)

Good post.

Probably should make his Turkey operation into a satellite to train the coders, and make a main office is a country where the coders are much better, and experienced and who he would require less of, pay more, but would be better + rotate the students through the main team or bring in real coders to help the students (who should ONLY be working on the simplest, non-gamebreakable coding elements, or visual elements or whatever).


I think you point it out really well, Turkey isn't really (or seems like it isnt) ideal for this type of operation, and it doesnt seem to scale well (given there are 100 employees, but it FEELS as if there is less progress. My guess is the team doubled since EA, and they are having a **** load of problems from the top down INCLUDING the game and its breakinesss (maybe attributable to the students... i dunnoi).

At the end of the day, its Armagans choice, but WE the consumers can chose not to purchase another thing from TaleWorlds (I wont buy anymore products from them unfortunately, Bannerlord was a total let down for me, i have 240+ hours in it alone, and I think I have spent almost that amount of time over the last 8 years, googling it, foruming it etc etc.).

Bottom line, they really need to fix whatever issues it is that they can, and find out ways to fix what they cant by not imposing limitations (staying in turkey may be one).

 

[Pizi_G]

Not to be a stickler but I'm pretty sure Turkey is a European country, despite what some people probably would want you to think.

fun fact turkey spans over 2 continent with a bridge between them
yes there are talks that they join the EU but they are basically on halt and i cant see them joining in the next 20 years

 

[babelfisch]

It´s just the price they ask for the state of the game. If they took 20-25€ for the EA state I would be totally fine with it.

And you would need to pay 25€ again when the game gets launched?
Sounds fair.

 

[sanalaismine]

fun fact turkey spans over 2 continent with a bridge between them
yes there are talks that they join the EU but they are basically on halt and i cant see them joining in the next 20 years

Yeah, that's not happening anytime soon. It's only shame for nearly half of Turkish people who think and live like Europans but if I were EU, the other half would make me scared too.

 

[Pizi_G]

its not Turkeys fault alone that the talkes halted
the EU also needs to get their **** together with the Visegrád Group and other problems

 

[sanalaismine]

its not Turkeys fault alone that the talkes halted
the EU also needs to get their **** together with the Visegrád Group and other problems

Yeah, surely they don't act like a group of etiques. They are swaying solely where their interest lies lately instead of trying to preserve human and nature values.

I think everyone needs a "volumetric **** compressor" in these days.

 

[froggyluv]

Not to be a stickler but I'm pretty sure Turkey is a European country, despite what some people probably would want you to think.

Not to be a double stickler but you got me curious so i looked it up and apparently 95% of Turkey is in Asia while just 5% is on the European continent.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Saying something is a "European country" is vastly different to just saying it's on the continent. Much of Eastern Europe is, ironically, not usually considered when most people say "European country". There are a whole load of historical, cultural, and even racist reasons why half the continent is basically excluded from this definition.

In an alternate universe where Ottoman politics turned out slightly different, Turkey might easily have been considered part of Europe, while Spain or even Italy might not have.