Worth the Price Tag?

[BaronSkilith]

To start off, I loved Warband. I have just under 800 hours on it and it is my second most played game of all time. I've been loosely following Bannerlord for a few years now, and I was pretty excited when I heard that it was coming out. Even tried to 100% Warband prior to that (which I quickly realized I couldn't do the week I gave myself haha).

So my question is: is this game worth the 40$ discounted price right now? At base price, it's 50$ for an early access game that, from reading reviews, still has a substantial way to go until it is close to being finished. I know that when DayZ was first released on early access it was only 20$, and now that it is in a full release it has been bumped up to a full 45$. That makes sense to me honestly. But Bannerlord is already starting at nearly a full-price AAA game, which does deter me, considering what I've heard about the state of the game. DayZ is my most played game with nearly 900 hours so I don't mind bugs and glitches galore. But I paid 20$ that game which helped me look past all the downsides of the game and made me not mind being a 'tester'. With Bannerlord, I'm not sure if I could do that after spending 40$ [50$] (I'm very stingy when it comes to money).

So given that, is Bannerlord worth essentially paying the price for a new AAA game?

[ Added a poll for those who don't feel like typing up a discussion and want to quickly answer ]

 

[Cheesy-]

Obviously it depends on how much $40 is worth to you, but I would say content-wise it does not quite reach what I would except for $40 (or 40€ as I paid). If you feel you can wait you might as well do so, but if you've been waiting for ages like me and don't mind it being early access then go for it.

 

[CroaTKO]

Absoloutly if you are fan of Taleworlds, and you wish to support developers.

I already have 24 hours in the game. Yes the game has bugs but its playable and devs are working hard on fixing them.

 

[29A]

I don't know what you mean by "price of a new AAA game". Right now, the game is $58.49 CAD (not sure how that shakes out for other currencies), whereas a typical AAA game like DOOM Eternal is $79.99.

 

[Torbiel1234]

Depends on your income tbh

 

[Brynjahr]

If youd rather go out to a club for half a night or play a game for at least 5000 hours is up to you
defintely worth it for me

 

[JimmyCakes]

Not if you want the single player. MP is fun to jump around in while we wait for the game to be finished, but don't ruin the single player for yourself by playing it early

 

[Ristridin]

It isn't the price of a new AAA game, those go for way more on average. As to the question if I think it is worth the current price, I don't think the game in it's current state is worth it, but that is just my opinion off course. And since I only can (and will) decide about my own money, I won't say anything about people who bought it, I just hope they enjoy it and have fun with it
But I don't like the idea of buying a game in such an early stage of EA. I wait until most bugs are ironed out, and the game has a bit more content. Meanwhile I just browse these fora, follow the updates TW will put in the game, and at some point will buy the game. It's way to busy at work at the moment anyway, so I don't even have the time to play it properly anyway

Edit; Wait, I know it's off topic, but why am I all of a sudden a lady called 'Thera' and is my profile picture changed in said lady?

 

[BaronSkilith]

Obviously it depends on how much $40 is worth to you, but I would say content-wise it does not quite reach what I would except for $40 (or 40€ as I paid). If you feel you can wait you might as well do so, but if you've been waiting for ages like me and don't mind it being early access then go for it.

Thanks for the input. I've always been overly cautious when buying anything, and I'm fine with spending a few more dollars down the road to buy the game when it's finished. I'm just not sure if I can justify me spending 40$ to have a game sit around waiting for it to mature into its final release.

 

[Cheesy-]

Thanks for the input. I've always been overly cautious when buying anything, and I'm fine with spending a few more dollars down the road to buy the game when it's finished. I'm just not sure if I can justify me spending 40$ to have a game sit around waiting for it to mature into its final release.

Sounds to me like you might as well wait. It's not going to get any more expensive and it's only going to get better in the future.

 

[gasznak]

To start off, I loved Warband. I have just under 800 hours on it and it is my second most played game of all time. I've been loosely following Bannerlord for a few years now, and I was pretty excited when I heard that it was coming out. Even tried to 100% Warband prior to that (which I quickly realized I couldn't do the week I gave myself haha).

So my question is: is this game worth the 40$ discounted price right now? At base price, it's 50$ for an early access game that, from reading reviews, still has a substantial way to go until it is close to being finished. I know that when DayZ was first released on early access it was only 20$, and now that it is in a full release it has been bumped up to a full 45$. That makes sense to me honestly. But Bannerlord is already starting at nearly a full-price AAA game, which does deter me, considering what I've heard about the state of the game. DayZ is my most played game with nearly 900 hours so I don't mind bugs and glitches galore. But I paid 20$ that game which helped me look past all the downsides of the game and made me not mind being a 'tester'. With Bannerlord, I'm not sure if I could do that after spending 40$ [50$] (I'm very stingy when it comes to money).

So given that, is Bannerlord worth essentially paying the price for a new AAA game?

[ Added a poll for those who don't feel like typing up a discussion and want to quickly answer ]

I wouldn't recommend buying the game right now.

If you look here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?forums/crash-reports.666/ you can see there's a bunch of people that bought this game and can't even enter the main manu (cause the game keep crashing on loading screens) despite meeting all requirement and trying multiple suggested "fixes".

When devs fix those critical errors I'd check again and decide. Right now many people are very close to refunding.

 

[BaronSkilith]

I don't know what you mean by "price of a new AAA game". Right now, the game is $58.49 CAD (not sure how that shakes out for other currencies), whereas a typical AAA game like DOOM Eternal is $79.99.

Roughly the price of a AAA game. In terms of USD, a full-price AAA is 60$ and the undiscounted price of Bannerlord is 50$, so they're roughly the same. Granted I have a total of 20% off, making it sum up to 40$ which I'll admit is a decent bit less. I was looking more at the base price of 50$ to open an avenue of discussion about the general price marking in regards to other similar early access games (hence my mention of DayZ and its price changes throughout its development). Thanks for the response.

 

[Aelfric190]

I like to rate games mostly by the $1, 1 hour rule. I've got 30 hours in it already, and not even close to finishing the quests or the core meat of the game which is taking over castles and cities etc. So, I spent $42 on it, and I'm already 30 hours in, I'm expecting to get at least another couple hundred hours out of this before the game even comes out of early Access. So yes, I would say it's quite worth the money if you're a fan of this very unique genre that no other game does.
Edit::: Also, AAA games are $60 or more these days. So paying $42 upon this release right now is an absolute bargain by all financial standards. It's also not a AAA game. It's made by a VERY VERY SMALL dev team.

 

[BaronSkilith]

It isn't the price of a new AAA game, those go for way more on average. As to the question if I think it is worth the current price, I don't think the game in it's current state is worth it, but that is just my opinion off course. And since I only can (and will) decide about my own money, I won't say anything about people who bought it, I just hope they enjoy it and have fun with it
But I don't like the idea of buying a game in such an early stage of EA. I wait until most bugs are ironed out, and the game has a bit more content. Meanwhile I just browse these fora, follow the updates TW will put in the game, and at some point will buy the game. It's way to busy at work at the moment anyway, so I don't even have the time to play it properly anyway

Edit; Wait, I know it's off topic, but why am I all of a sudden a lady called 'Thera' and is my profile picture changed in said lady?

I really like how civil these forums are haha, a huge difference from reading through the steam review comments . And I think I'm sharing the same mentality as you are. Just can't justify spending 40$ to test and wait for a game to mature. Thanks for the input.

Also, I have no idea what the pictures and names are about. It threw me for a loop when I first posted this discussion haha.

 

[BaronSkilith]

I like to rate games mostly by the $1, 1 hour rule. I've got 30 hours in it already, and not even close to finishing the quests or the core meat of the game which is taking over castles and cities etc. So, I spent $42 on it, and I'm already 30 hours in, I'm expecting to get at least another couple hundred hours out of this before the game even comes out of early Access. So yes, I would say it's quite worth the money if you're a fan of this very unique genre that no other game does.
Edit::: Also, AAA games are $60 or more these days. So paying $42 upon this release right now is an absolute bargain by all financial standards. It's also not a AAA game. It's made by a VERY VERY SMALL dev team.

My main conflict was the price in regards to how far along the game seems to be. I haven't played the game myself granted, but I've heard that the game is in pretty rough shape when it comes to crashes, freezing, dialogue and some mechanics (though others have had no problems) (I've heard the music is amazing though, which is always a critical part of a game). Hence why I mentioned DayZ being marked as 20$ for their early access and slowly being marked up to 45$ for their full release, while Bannerlord is more expensive on base price right out of the gate. But I'll admit that I overreached with the AAA game comparison. With the discount the 40$ to 60$ difference is substantial. I was focusing more on the base price without the discount for making my comparison to open an avenue for discussion. Thanks for the input.

 

[Aelfric190]

My main conflict was the price in regards to how far along the game seems to be. I haven't played the game myself granted, but I've heard that the game is in pretty rough shape when it comes to crashes, freezing, dialogue and some mechanics (though others have had no problems) (I've heard the music is amazing though, which is always a critical part of a game). Hence why I mentioned DayZ being marked as 20$ for their early access and slowly being marked up to 45$ for their full release, while Bannerlord is more expensive on base price right out of the gate. But I'll admit that I overreached with the AAA game comparison. With the discount the 40$ to 60$ difference is substantial. I was focusing more on the base price without the discount for making my comparison to open an avenue for discussion. Thanks for the input.

So, this is anecdotal evidence, but in my 30 hours of gametime, I only crashed once. It was when I joined an AI army and they attacked a castle, which crashed my game. They've since fixed that in yesterdays hotfix. They also had another hotfix today fixing a lot of other issues. So, less than 72 hours out, and they've already had 3 hotfixes. That is quite the dedication by the DEV team.
I have not experienced any of the issues that most people seem to be having. But then again, I'm also on quite a beast computer.
Ryzen 9 3900x, RTX 2080 super, 32gb 3200mhz ram.

If you like Warband, then you will like this, period. It's got basically all the same features Warband has and then some. Kingdom Mechanics aren't completely implemented yet, but there is SO MUCH to do besides that.

 

[BaronSkilith]

So, this is anecdotal evidence, but in my 30 hours of gametime, I only crashed once. It was when I joined an AI army and they attacked a castle, which crashed my game. They've since fixed that in yesterdays hotfix. They also had another hotfix today fixing a lot of other issues. So, less than 72 hours out, and they've already had 3 hotfixes. That is quite the dedication by the DEV team.
I have not experienced any of the issues that most people seem to be having. But then again, I'm also on quite a beast computer.
Ryzen 9 3900x, RTX 2080 super, 32gb 3200mhz ram.

If you like Warband, then you will like this, period. It's got basically all the same features Warband has and then some. Kingdom Mechanics aren't completely implemented yet, but there is SO MUCH to do besides that.

I didn't know that. That's pretty cool that they've had all these hotfixes come out. I might delay my decision maybe another week or so since the discount continues until the 13th I believe, just to see the state of the game around there and it's improvements. And I did quite like Warband and I don't doubt that I'd like this game. I'd just rather pay more money for a more completed project or less money for a less completed one, rather than a relatively larger fee for a project in between (DayZ discussion plugin here). I do hope that it continues to improve though, and if it does before the discount is over I probably will talk myself into buying it haha.
I was concerned over the cost to game substance/quality ratio, but if they're able to keep up the hotfixes and game improvements at the rate you say, my concerns might just be alleviated. Thanks for your response, very informative.

 

[Aelfric190]

I didn't know that. That's pretty cool that they've had all these hotfixes come out. I might delay my decision maybe another week or so since the discount continues until the 13th I believe, just to see the state of the game around there and it's improvements. And I did quite like Warband and I don't doubt that I'd like this game. I'd just rather pay more money for a more completed project or less money for a less completed one, rather than a relatively larger fee for a project in between (DayZ discussion plugin here). I do hope that it continues to improve though, and if it does before the discount is over I probably will talk myself into buying it haha.
I was concerned over the cost to game substance/quality ratio, but if they're able to keep up the hotfixes and game improvements at the rate you say, my concerns might just be alleviated. Thanks for your response, very informative.

No worries dude. I like seeing people invest their money in actual deserving games!! *cough looking at you Electronic Arts*. We need more games like this in the industry, and less money grabber bullcrap.
Also, this is nothing like Dayz upon release. This is so much more optimized and polished than Dayz was. This is essentially the full game, with some features missing. Little balance tweaks here and there, little optimization for people with crappy computers, little features promised to be implemented, and boom, it's out of EA.

 

[Gimot]

In the games current state I could not recommend the game at its price until a lot of things are fixed such as steam rolling kingdoms, crossbows only being sold for 20k, and not being able to get top tier armor let alone like buying half the armor in single player just to name a few makes the game very unpleasant at the moment i know this game will steam roll just like the southern empire into a great game

 

[Aelfric190]

In the games current state I could not recommend the game at its price until a lot of things are fixed such as steam rolling kingdoms, crossbows only being sold for 20k, and not being able to get top tier armor let alone like buying half the armor in single player just to name a few makes the game very unpleasant at the moment i know this game will steam roll just like the southern empire into a great game

I've made 4 playthroughs so far, and steamrolling only happened in one of them. It's definitely very very random. I agree that it shouldn't be happening at all however, at least not in the first 40 or 50 hours of a playthrough.
Edit:: The rest of your complaints are nothing in the grand scheme of things.