Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Galdred]

The original M&B was their first game and made by a very small team relative to its scope. Now they have a studio of 100+ people and a virtually unlimited budget working on a sequel. Fan expectations are much higher this time around, and justifiably so.

Wasn't the team literally the developer guy and his wife artist at the beginning of the early access of mount and blade?
Having a team of 100 makes a lot of things harder (huge communication overhead, lesser ability to keep a "when it's done" stance...).

 

[Sarkile]

The original M&B was their first game and made by a very small team relative to its scope. Now they have a studio of 100+ people and a virtually unlimited budget working on a sequel. Fan expectations are much higher this time around, and justifiably so.

Wasn't the team literally the developer guy and his wife artist at the beginning of the early access of mount and blade?
Having a team of 100 makes a lot of things harder (huge communication overhead, lesser ability to keep a "when it's done" stance...).

Way back in the day when armagan would show up, even to the Codex, to shill Way of The Sword/Warrider/Mount & Blade?

 

[Zanzoken]

The point I was making is that the circumstances of how something was created affect its perceived quality.

To draw an analogy, imagine you are asked to take a look at two houses and give your opinion on them.

House #1

The first house was built by just one guy. He reclaimed a lot of the materials himself, and did all the work on his own over the course of several years.

The house is modest in size, lacks a few modern features, and is a little janky and uneven in some places. But the total cost was only $10,000.

House #2

The second house was built by a professional construction company. There were carpenters, stonemasons, electricians, plumbers, and other skilled laborers on the job... over 100 people in total. This project also took several years.

The house is impressive at first blush, but upon closer inspection you notice that it's also missing some features, and some of the work is inconsistent here as well. The total cost for this home was $10,000,000.

So which house would you have a more favorable view of?

I think most people would feel quite a bit more positive toward the first one. A project made by one person with little money is an impressive feat, even if the end result is small and has imperfections. Meanwhile a huge, multi-million dollar project made by a large team of people who are supposed to be skilled professionals is judged much more severely. There are certain quality expectations and a builder with an abundance of time, funding, personnel, etc really has no excuse for not meeting them.

So to bring this back around, Bannerlord is a disappointment because it's just like House #2. It's not terrible, but given the resources at their disposal, Taleworlds should've delivered a much better game. And unless they somehow manage to polish Bannerlord into a shiny gem -- which let's face it, is unlikely -- I can at least get some catharsis by continuing to shit on them for their incompetence and/or lack of effort.

 

[IDtenT]

Your analogy is flawed, because what's actually important is that you can rent either house for the same amount of money.

 

[Perkel]

WTF are you even talking about. Bannerlord seems like huge incline over original and warband. It is also early access and not just "do beta for us" but actual early access where stuff is not finished with missing stuff. Maybe you should wait for 1.0 like me.

Graphics engine also is still in dev. It is not like they have already finished engine. On release loading models would take fucking ages and you had to do it every time you wanted something from someone.

 

[Fedora Master]

It is also early access and not just "do beta for us"

There is no other kind of EA.

 

[Perkel]

There is no other kind of EA.

Factorio.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Came back to this and my save kept crashing so I restarted. Now the game plays super laggy--every menu screen, every conversation, every town or NPC I click on for conversation, there is a pause of 5-10 seconds.

It's not framerate issue from what I can tell, once the game kicks in it runs just fine. Weird.

 

[Jenkem]

Anyone who bought the game in early access after literal years of blogposts indicating the amount of work that had been done and then complains is a fool. they've been pretty transparent the entire way through so much so that you had people making fun of how slow they were going before they ever released the game in EA at all, and the EA updates are a hell of a lot more frequent than those ever were

 

[Spectacle]

An absolute madman is making a mod that links Crusader Kings 3 and Bannerlord to let you play resolve CK3 battles in person.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/lvc3c9/it_works_sleepless_nights_working_on_the_mod/

 

[Zariusz]

An absolute madman is making a mod that links Crusader Kings 3 and Bannerlord to let you play resolve CK3 battles in person.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/lvc3c9/it_works_sleepless_nights_working_on_the_mod/

This is like dream from 10 years ago, this has gigantic potential.

 

[ArchAngel]

I think I might have finally figured out what is causing the game to crash in battles in late game in my campaigns. Apparently there is a bug when cavalry fights and one of those is using a crossbow on horseback.
In both my campaign runs I had a guy use a crossbow on foot until he level enough to be able to reload any crossbows on horseback. I would then give him the horse and it seems this would start constant crashing. And it crashed more often vs Khuzait because they got more horsemen so more chance of this combination happening. Damn, how a little thing like this can ruin the game... I had so much fun in late game fights until it started crashing so often.

 

[IDtenT]

Still waiting for e1.6.

 

[copebot]

Can someone who has played it since the change that makes battle maps reflect the campaign map give a review of stuff that has changed/improved/gotten worse since the launch of the EA? I put around 130 hours into the launch version and set it aside for the last year or so.

 

[ArchAngel]

Can someone who has played it since the change that makes battle maps reflect the campaign map give a review of stuff that has changed/improved/gotten worse since the launch of the EA? I put around 130 hours into the launch version and set it aside for the last year or so.

I think that change is coming in future.

 

[Fedora Master]

Max bulk/min weight

 

[Old One]

Looks like a Balkan Sylvester Stallone.

Also needs a slider for "trousers bulge."

 

[Jenkem]

massive update, lads

 

[Lokiamis]

Early Access is a terrible thing. All of the excitement people had for this game blown on a buggy, shallow EA release. Amazing mods have been released but are lost as the authors always lose interest in constantly keeping them up to date with the latest beta.
Even after all this time since release, very little has changed. It's insane that they haven't even implemented all of the perks yet. I can't see there being much interest when/if the game is actually released.

 

[Alienman]

Yes, EA has destroyed all excitement for new releases. When it was introduced I thought it was going to be a rare thing, not something big and medium devs would use this frequently. Such a rare and happy happening when a game is released in full state.

 

[thesecret1]

I mean, when you look back at what TaleWorlds managed to do with Bannerlord in one year, you suddenly start understanding why it took them so long to make the game...

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

View attachment 18424

Max bulk/min weight

 

[Zanzoken]

Yes, EA has destroyed all excitement for new releases. When it was introduced I thought it was going to be a rare thing, not something big and medium devs would use this frequently. Such a rare and happy happening when a game is released in full state.

Early Access can be a really good thing, but too many developers have abused it and used it as a justification for putting out shitty, unfinished games. Taleworlds is at the top of that list as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Alienman]

Yes, EA has destroyed all excitement for new releases. When it was introduced I thought it was going to be a rare thing, not something big and medium devs would use this frequently. Such a rare and happy happening when a game is released in full state.

Early Access can be a really good thing, but too many developers have abused it and used it as a justification for putting out shitty, unfinished games. Taleworlds is at the top of that list as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, of course, but it's also if you have any interest in games, and follow certain developers, you already know everything about the game before you even start playing - even if you wait for the 1.0 release. Also, I miss the time when everyone went into a game the same time, when a game was terra incognita before release. It's the most fun for me personally, playing the game combined with reading forums, talking tactics etc.

 

[LizardWizard]

Yes, EA has destroyed all excitement for new releases. When it was introduced I thought it was going to be a rare thing, not something big and medium devs would use this frequently. Such a rare and happy happening when a game is released in full state.

This game would never see the light of day without EA. lets be honest. They basically gave away MB1 beta for a couple of dollars years before it was ever finished.