Source : http://www.gamersky.com/zhuanti/zfqmyksy/
When we tell that our job is game development, a lot of people think that we are in the business of printing and selling game CDs……
Talewords used to be a grassroot developer in video game industry. But when the day “Mount and Blade” hit the internet, the “grassroot” quickly became a living legend. As one of the first firms benefited from crowdfunding, Talewords and their “Mount and Blade” brought a lot of new elements to the video game world than many big companies did in years. The unique “flavor” of their work earned them a lot of fans, and since the sequel of “Mount and Blade” made public, the anticipation never cease boiling. With the help of Mount and Blade Chinese Fan Site, we are honoured to have the honored Armagan Yavuz sitting with us, sharing some exciting news about upcoming “Mount and Blade 2：Banner Lord”.
Legend of Turkey
Reporter： Could you tell us more about Taleworlds? How large is the crew?
Armağan： My wife İpek and I founded the company back in 2005, and over the years it has grown up to over 50 team members. We are very passionate about games and our core philosophy is creating games that we would like to play.
Reporter： How does it feel to develop a video game in Turkey? Is there any interesting stories you can share with as?
Armağan： Game development industry in Turkey is relatively new and there is still a shortage of experienced game developers. On the other hand, there are many passionate young people looking to make a career in games industry and we are fortunate to be able to work with a young and talented team.
Since the field is so new, we do encounter a lot of interesting events. For example, when we tell that our job is game development, a lot of people think that we are in the business of printing and selling game CDs and are surprised to hear that we are actually programming the game.
The whole Taleworlds family A Total Overhaul
Reporter： Why Bannerlord? Is the name “Bannerlord” contains some sub-context?
Armağan： We were toying around with different names and we felt Bannerlord was unique and evoked the right feeling for a character the player would like to identify with. There will certainly be more importance to vassalage and families in Bannerlord and we'll be talking about that soon! And of course since the game is now named Bannerlord, we were duty-bound to create a rather slick banner editor...
Motion capture is very important Reporter： Fans down here are dying to know more about the upcoming Mount and Blade II. What will it be like in general? Will it be more like the first game, or will it be more like something else?
Armağan： Mount & Blade II will be a large overhaul in a number of areas compared with the first game but we can say that “Mount & Blade gameplay” will still be present in a strategic sense and hopefully it will have the same addicting effect that the previous titles strived to create. We have gone over all the single player campaign mechanics and tried to re-design every little detail so that the campaign flows smoothly and player is immersed in the game world. Apart from that pretty much everything from combat system to animations have significant improvements.
Better graphic is just the beginning Reporter： What will be the most significant improvement in Mount and Blade 2 compare to it’s ancestor?
Armağan： Honestly, we expect opinion on this to vary from player to player. We devote our time more or less equally among different aspects of the game.
All in all, one of our most important goals is to design and polish various aspects of the game so that not only each feature is fun and interesting in its own right but also each aspect interacts with others so that the sum is a well-functioning and beautiful overall design.
New Engine, New Horizon
Reporter： From the developer blog we knew that you are using a “indoor engine” to power the new game. How good exactly this engine is? Do you have some awesome number to blow our mind?
Armağan： We are very proud of our game engine, which we developed from pretty much scratch for Bannerlord. The engine features a very easy to use and powerful editor, as well as the latest technologies such as DX11, physically based shading, aggressive use of multi-threading and many others. It is unfortunately too early to give specific numbers, but the engine wıll be very well optimized and will hopefully serve us and our community for years to come.
Taleworlds’ new indoor engine Reporter： Speak for the fans, some of our readers are having concern about the size of the battle, because it seems the shinning new look possibly will crush our video card again like it was in 2003.At least I have zero confidence that my GTX660 could survive that kind of delicacy with a 500 hundred people/horses battle. Will the medium level PC still have a smooth run in the new game with the battle size of the original Mount and Blade?
Armağan： Performance is a priority for us as well because we want our game to be played by as many people as possible. We are trying to make all our graphical features scalable so that players with less powerful hardware can turn them off to gain performance. Moreover, Bannerlord will come with a great number of performance improvements over Warband, including aggressive use of multi-threading and re-design of certain computationally expensive features.
There will of course be a minimum set of hardware that we have set as our goal for running the game. We haven’t decided on this yet, bu a GTX660 should definitely be able to play the game in basic settings.
Reporter： Will the sequel as mod friendly as the first game?
Armağan： Actually, we are striving to make it much more mod friendly in general. This is part of the reason why developing the game is taking longer than what we expected, since any systems we come up with have to be not only performing well, but must also be clean and easy to understand and change for modders.
Reporter： Some of the fans are already talking about possible Boss battles. The question is will there be any Boss battle in traditional sense?
Armağan： Boss battles aren't really a feature of our game in the traditional sense. Storyline driven aspects of the campaign will have big fights and naturally important conflicts will occur in the sandbox, that may have significant results on the politics of the continent. But there won't be anything like a megalord who shoots out fireballs and needs to be defeated in order to advance to the next level!
Maybe they are too attractive for a video game company Reporter： Singleplayer and multiplayer, which part will the game focus on? Do you wish to give Mount and Blade II more online features? Maybe something like a MMO style character progress system? And will the multiplayer part still be more like an online arena or we are talking about an “Online campaign”?
Armağan： We have high standards that we are aiming for in both Single-Player and Multi-Player. For us, it's not a question of choosing one over the other. Both must meet our expectations. Unfortunately, we cannot reveal further information about additional online features at this time but the online arena style gameplay option is certainly not going anywhere. There will not be a MMO style character progression in the classical sense, since that would significantly disturb the fairness and sports-like atmosphere of the game. However, players will be able to monitor and feel their progress without getting an unfair advantage.
Everybody Loves Openworld
Reporter： Open-world element used to be one of Mount and Blade’s most popular feature, will Mount and Blade II carry on the good tradition this time? If so, how big will it be?
Armağan： Bannerlord will definitely feature an open-world map. We have still not finalized playing with proportions and scale but I can say the map’s area is roughly four times that of Warband.
One developer is tuning audio file Reporter： Base one the developer blog, it seems your team is trying to give the new game some extra strategy layers. Will it made Mount and Blade II be more like, let’s say Total War series?
Armağan： Bannerlord will have a great number of improvements in the easiness and speed of commanding your troops. The enemy AI will also be vastly improved. Having said that, the core focus of the game is still maintaining the agency and immersion in playing your own character so the battles won’t ever feel like a 3-D strategy game.
Hack enemy down on horseback is still the key Reporter： Everybody here (and every other single fan on this planet) just generally want to know more about the Mount and Blade II. We understand that at this point, you probably can’t talk much, so at last, is there anything you want to talk to your Chinese fans?
Armağan： Thanks to all of you for playing and enjoying the game! It's incredible for us to see how popular the game is all over the world and really a big inspiration for us as the developers. We know that the Chinese community is incredibly active making mods and running tournaments as well. That is very cool. Hopefully, with Bannerlord, we can produce something which inspires the same level enthusiasm.