Dev Blog 05/09/19

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

Last week, we asked for questions from you, our community, regarding Bannerlord's multiplayer closed beta and the early access phase that the game will transition through on its way to a full release. We decided to answer a few more than we originally anticipated, and so, we thought it would be best to save the campaign gameplay video until next week's blog instead (our apologies if that is what you are here for!). We hope that these direct and honest answers will give you an insight into what is happening with the beta and a greater understanding of what to expect from early access. So, without further ado, let's get to it, shall we?

Beta

The way of reporting feedback is the first question that comes to mind if I join open beta, would I be able to report feedback/issues with ease, and how?

• We have a beta section on our official forums which has been segmented in a way to allow players to provide feedback about specific points while making that information easily accessible by our development team. (the forums are hidden right now, but they will be opened up and accessible next week alongside the first wave of beta invites!). In addition to this, we send out regular feedback forms via email to gather players thoughts on different aspects of the game. We also use automated tools as part of the process which allows us to gather data on a number of different things. One such example is our analytics tool on our servers. This allows us to track events in each multiplayer match to aid us in balancing the game. Another tool is our crash reporter, which automatically sends a crash report to us for review in the event of a game crash.

What criteria are you basing the waves of invites for the beta on? I’m assuming computer specs mostly.

• We have identified several key groups and we’ll be allocating quotas for different groups according to the kind of feedback we need at each specific stage of beta testing. For example, at one stage we may invite old M&B MP players because we are particularly interested in how they will adjust to a certain mechanic. At another stage, we may invite players with low-end PCs because our engine team needs to see how the game runs on their hardware.

Will the beta expand to include other game modes? I would love to get a look at captain mode, and possibly some multiplayer sieges, etc.

• Of course! To give you an idea of how this will progress, when we started the beta, we launched with Skirmish Mode, two factions and one map. Over time we introduced Captain Mode, Team Deathmatch, a selection of maps, and the remaining 4 factions. At times, such is the case right now with Captain Mode, we will disable some content so that it can be worked on and improved before being reintroduced. Moving forward we hope to introduce more content, including siege as a game mode. However, we should say that people shouldn’t expect new content with every patch. Sometimes the patches will be focused entirely on balancing and bug fixing.

Will you give a chance to SP players to try MP and hear their opinion or will your first choice be MP players for the Beta?

• We are interested in hearing the thoughts of people from a wide range of gaming preferences and backgrounds. Bannerlord’s singleplayer and multiplayer share a lot of core systems, in particular, the combat system,