Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Saxon1974]

Geez this thing is about vaporware to me..what's it been feels like 7 years now?

 

[LESS T_T]

Hump!: http://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1649878739721910509

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

Hump day is behind us and the weekend is in sight; Thursday is upon us and it is time for another of our weekly updates! Grab a cup of camel-mile tea, sit back and let us introduce you to a new addition to the Mount & Blade series.

Humphrey

Superbly adapted to the desert regions which they populate, dromedary camels have contributed a great deal to both trade and warfare since their domestication thousands of years ago. Their strength, stature and ability to survive for extended periods without food or water make them an invaluable asset for anyone looking to make an arduous journey through a desert.

The Nahasa: the vast desert in southern Calradia, and home to the Aserai, makes for the ideal location for the inclusion of these magnificent beasts. Players can expect to see camels commonly in this region, working as pack animals in trade caravans or as camelry in battles. Although they are slightly slower and less manoeuvrable than horses, camels are able to withstand greater punishment – which is reflected in the game. The rider’s elevated position gives them a height advantage over horse cavalry, but limits their options when dealing with foot soldiers and makes them more exposed to missile units. Camels also receive a small bonus to their speed and manoeuvrability while travelling through the Nahasa, so players may wish to consider enlisting some of these animals into their service during any extended campaigns in the desert.



The process of making the camel required 4 steps: modelling, texturing, rigging and animating. For each step we searched for and analysed reference images and videos of camels, working closely to the sources to get the most realistic result. We created a detailed skeleton which contains a number of systems (like dynamic joints and a jiggle system) which made the rigging process take up most of the time, however we think the end result was worth it. Our animator gathered a lot of reference videos of camel movement and behaviour and wanted to note that he really enjoyed working on this project, because – in his own words: “camels are funny animals”.

Camels are just another example of some of the small additions and improvements we are making to Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. They aren’t ground-breaking or game-changing, but they do add some additional diversity to our troop roster and give players more tactical options for both the campaign and battles.

 

[Elex]

look at that super confident camel.

 

[Got bored and left]

look at that super confident camel.

More like Chadmel, amirite?

 

[Makabb]

There must be something wrong with development if after 7 years they are showing only a camel..... yea vaporware....

 

[Cyberarmy]

Your face is vaporware!

 

[Got bored and left]

There must be something wrong with development if after 7 years they are showing only a camel..... yea vaporware....

That's a pretty baller fucking camel, though.

Maybe they should contact Cleve to get advice on how to release games on time?

 

[unfairlight]

I will buy the game day 1 if I can play as a Khergit horse archer.
And if they fucking fix spears since they were so shit in Warband.
But I completely and totally expect this game to be vaporware.

 

[tindrli]

[/IMG]

 

[unfairlight]

microsoft paint/10

 

[DoomIhlVaria]

Camels are included, game will be awesome!

I prefer to ride turtles, personally.

 

[Dwarvophile]

I hope so much to play this and soon !

Also, I don't know sheisse about game design and was wondering if a multiplayer campaign something that is possible to implement (in the PvP sense of it) ?

 

[Alienman]

I think co-op was planned but was dropped unfortunately.

 

[LESS T_T]

Look at these shiny things you can't touch:



http://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1652131172256335463

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

In this week’s blog, we would like to talk about the newly introduced engine version 1.4 which consists of many graphical improvements as well as a number of performance updates.

We develop engine features in separate branches with each one labelled as a version. This allows us to test new features extensively and efficiently without decreasing the stability for the gameplay programmers.

Global Illumination
We introduced a new global illumination system to the engine which can correctly illuminate both static and dynamic objects. It is based on a pre-baked system called "Precomputed Radiance Transfer". It is independent from the atmosphere, which is a must for a game like Bannerlord where you will enter a scene at different times of the day. The system saves the illumination data to probes inside a regular grid. We developed lots of automatic placement tools so that the work required by artists to bake the scenes is kept to a minimal. Modders will be able to bake GI to their scenes using these tools.

Compute Shader Skinning
By using profilers we have learnt that in large-scale battles the majority of the GPU time is spent on the skinning of agent meshes. Normally, the skinning process is repeated every time a mesh needs to be rendered (shadow pass, gBuffer pass, special passes for custom hair shading etc.). To combat this, skinning calculations of skeletal meshes have been moved from the vertex shader stage to a separate compute shader stage. Despite both stages running on the GPU, executing a separate stage for skinning and storing results in temporary memory enables us to do skinning calculations only once per frame and use special optimisation mechanisms that are exclusive to compute shaders. This results in the rendering time of skinning meshes being reduced by 60% which enables us to achieve 60FPS in huge battle scenes on a wide range of GPUs.

Particle Shading Atlas
Particles are now shaded in a separate compute shader stage. Each visible particle is assigned a rectangular region (2x2, 4x4, 8x8, 16x16 or 32x32) in a big global texture atlas according to its screen space size. Shading is done on these tiny quads with a compute shader stage. During the actual rendering, we just sample the lighting result from the atlas texture and skip any complex lighting computation. Separating shading and drawing stages enables us to reduce the fill rate costs of particles since the amount of shaded pixels are extremely reduced. This reduces the high GPU cost of the desert-like scenes. This technique also eliminates the sharp shadows on the particle quads, further increasing the visual quality of the already beautiful particles of Bannerlord!

At this point we feel it is important to stress the fact that while yes, we are still developing the engine and making new additions: this work is running entirely parallel to the development of Bannerlord. Our dedicated engine team are constantly striving to give us a better optimised engine which allows us to have larger battles, higher frame rates, greater visual fidelity and faster loading times. This work doesn’t hold back the development of the game in any way, shape or form and will ultimately improve the overall quality of the final product.

In next week’s blog we will be talking to Gameplay Programmer, Korneel Guns. Korneel’s main focus is on the multiplayer aspect of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. If you have any questions you would like to ask him please leave a reply in the comments and we will pick one out for him to answer!

 

[Liquorice]

Khergit horse archer.

Yes! Horse Archer Master Race. Minus the Khergit part. They really suck as a faction.

 

[Maggot]

I will buy the game day 1 if I can play as a Khergit horse archer.
And if they fucking fix spears since they were so shit in Warband.
But I completely and totally expect this game to be vaporware.

Spears were not shit their only issue in native is that there's no overhead thrust attack unlike NW or VC but Bannerlord is already confirmed to have it.

 

[vivec]

Mount and blade: Camel lord

Obvious joke incoming.

 

[vota DC]

I will buy the game day 1 if I can play as a Khergit horse archer.
And if they fucking fix spears since they were so shit in Warband.
But I completely and totally expect this game to be vaporware.

Spears were not shit their only issue in native is that there's no overhead thrust attack unlike NW or VC but Bannerlord is already confirmed to have it.

Lack of collision makes spears weak. A couched lance deal damage, running or riding against a spear deal no damage at all and once you are near facehugging will kill you.

 

[Maggot]

I will buy the game day 1 if I can play as a Khergit horse archer.
And if they fucking fix spears since they were so shit in Warband.
But I completely and totally expect this game to be vaporware.

Spears were not shit their only issue in native is that there's no overhead thrust attack unlike NW or VC but Bannerlord is already confirmed to have it.

Lack of collision makes spears weak. A couched lance deal damage, running or riding against a spear deal no damage at all and once you are near facehugging will kill you.

just turn into your attacks for windup when they're in your face

 

[thesheeep]

Camels are included, game will be awesome!

I prefer to ride turtles, personally.

Mods will fix it.

Imagine that. Riding a turle in combat, while absolutely everyone totally outpaces you

 

[Liquorice]

Camels are included, game will be awesome!

I prefer to ride turtles, personally.

Mods will fix it.

Imagine that. Riding a turle in combat, while absolutely everyone totally outpaces you

I really hope somebody makes that. Codex modders, pls

 

[LESS T_T]

Q&A with multiplayer programmer, with a nice Kingdom Come screenshot: http://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1652131807604836420

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

For many people, Mount & Blade: Warband is a singleplayer experience which lets them rise from the rank of a commoner up to the ruler of an entire kingdom, developing their character and fighting in epic sieges along the way.

For others, it is an opportunity to run around naked with a two-handed sword and test their combat skills against players from all around the world. In this week’s blog, we talk with the person responsible for making these equally epic (and sometimes silly) experiences a reality in Bannerlord: Korneel Guns.


NAME
Korneel Guns

FROM
East-Flanders, Belgium

JOINED TALEWORLDS
2014

EDUCATION
Digital Arts and Entertainment (DAE), Howest

OFFICIAL JOB DESCRIPTION
Gameplay Programmer

WHAT DO YOU NORMALLY DO DURING YOUR DAY?
“Most of the time I work on multiplayer features, optimisations and bug fixes. What I actually do varies from day to day, depending on what we're trying to achieve that week. Lately, I don't get to write much code at all and instead most of my time is spent preparing our internal playtests, monitoring the sessions, gathering feedback from the participants and planning for the next test.”

WHAT DO YOU LIKE THE MOST ABOUT BANNERLORD?
“There are many things…

Sometimes, I just open a custom battle, put the troop count into the many hundreds, give command over my troops to the AI, and just watch as the armies clash. There's something very special about seeing this many troops doing their thing.

Lately, I've also been trying my hands on the scene editor and I'm just blown away by how easily I can make something that looks pretty nice. I believe we're going to have a lot of mods with an amazing visual quality.”

“Look: If I can make this, anyone can make something nice.”

“But I have to say that I’m mostly excited for the multiplayer part of the game. Before joining TaleWorlds, I spent a lot of time playing Napoleonic Wars and I regularly attended line-battles. It was always such a thrill to be a part of these huge organised battles, with disciplined regiments moving around in formation (only to be struck down by a single cannonball), the smoke from the musket fire, the surprise cavalry charges… It was an amazing experience. I can’t wait to see what the modding scene comes up with for Bannerlord as the possibilities are much greater than they ever were for Warband.”

WHAT'S THE MOST DIFFICULT THING THAT YOU SOLVED SO FAR, DURING THE PRODUCTION OF BANNERLORD?
“One of the hardest moments was definitely when we were starting out with serious, regular playtests to check both the game modes and combat. At the time, we didn't have any of the automated tests we have now, so the game broke pretty regularly (and in many different ways).

Since I was organizing these playtests, I felt very responsible for the failure or success of these tests. We would get a dozen people to stop working and help us playtest, only to find out that the game wasn't playable anymore and it was a waste of everyone's time.

We've improved the stability a lot since then, with the help of the QA team in combination with automated testing. Soon after, I could finally hear the cries of people getting killed in-game throughout the office, which certainly made me feel a lot better.”

Skirmish Playtest

WHAT DO YOU CURRENTLY WORK ON?
“I'm currently writing some extra tools that allow us to better monitor server network usage. We're aiming to have a potential maximum player limit that is well above Warband's, so it helps to be able to visualise data with real-time graphs and stats to find out about possible bottlenecks. We already have a very efficient networking system because of some great programmers on the team. I'm just making sure they can do their job even better!”

WHAT FACTION DO YOU LIKE THE MOST IN BANNERLORD?
“I struggle to choose between Battania and Vlandia.

The Empire may be in decline and crumbling, but Battania has long lost its glory. Its castles and towns are old and ruinous and each visit to a settlement tells a story of a faction just desperately trying to stay relevant. I find it fun to become part of such a faction and help it to rise up. I guess my Belgian roots may have something to do with that.

And Vlandia, because it's just a classic done well: majestic and dominating castles, chivalric knights and, of course, the crossbowmen! Fighting at range is by far my favourite thing to do. Both Battania and Vlandia excel at this, but the crossbow is definitely the coolest.”

WILL MULTIPLAYER BE LINKED WITH STEAM FOR INVITING FRIENDS?
“We have a full Steam integration, so you'll easily be able to join friends' games, or invite them to your party.”

WILL WE STILL BE ABLE TO CHOOSE WHAT SERVER WE JOIN, OR WILL IT BE PICKED FOR US?
“We will still have the server list, just like we have in Warband. It will contain both official and unofficial (community-run) servers. On top of that, there is also a matchmaking system which ties in nicely with our more competitive game modes (see question below).”

WHAT KIND OF GAME MODES CAN WE EXPECT?
“Siege has received a full overhaul. It is still all about attacking and defending an entire castle, but now with a full range of different kinds of siege weapons (ballistae, catapults, siege towers and battering rams).

Then, there are some game modes that are entirely new, such as Captain Battle: a team-based mode where each player gets command over a regiment of AI troops (just like in singleplayer). You win by either eliminating the other team, or by controlling the battlefield.

There is also Skirmish Battle, a more competitive game mode that is designed to be played 6 vs 6. You have multiple lives per round, but each troop has a different cost, which means you have to make a choice between fielding a greater number of poorly equipped troops or fewer more specialised ones. Good communication and managing your lives are key in this mode.

We also have a Duel Mode for those who want to test their skills in a more controlled environment.”

HOW DO YOU PLAN TO PREVENT CAMPING?
“The solutions to prevent camping are different for many games. For us, we realized it's a serious issue and we have designed our new game modes so that they make camping a bad choice: for Skirmish and Captain Battles, you have to be active and either fight the enemy, or move to different locations on the battlefield to control them. It's also not enough to just move to one location and hold it: you will constantly be encouraged to move and adapt until the very end of each round. We have noticed in our internal playtests that this is working out very well.”

 

[Alienman]

At least the spear guy is poking instead of slashing

 

[veevoir]

Multiplayer, bots for multi testing, server, network usage, multiplayer, server list.

 

[Maggot]

There's been multiplayer support since Warband.