Spoiler
Typing this from me mobile - pls no grammar h8
When a community starts to shrink, and regs start fighting over recruits, events, etc. Then obviously you get bad inter-clan/reg relationships. Think the Warband or CoD clans are any friendlier? I think that the magic of this game is that so much is community-sponsored, and so requires them to co-operate, not just co-exist, by running LBs, etc. Part of the fun with NW is that you do need to co-op with your teammate, and so teamwork becomes more relevant. Private servers, at least when the community is thriving, offer similar benefits to those seen in free markets - they run completely on donations (so no season pass etc.) and actually provide some competition between servers for who will provide the best service, etc. Mapping, a crucial part of Warband, also contributes to this. As for reg in-fighting, well, sadly, that is part of Human nature; a problem which is exacerbated here by the need for ranks. And just as you have the losers who bitch about anything, you also have people who just relax and DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEIR IN-GAME RANK. So if you dont care, just ignore the power struggles, let them pass you by, and MOVE ON! They just play the game. And, at the end of the day, you don't need a regiment to play. You can join with a m8 and just have fun, the two of you, on whichever server you want, whatever time you want... I joined the 21o_SB at my 30th minute (now im at 1500 hours), 18 months ago, and hae only played 30 LBs, or less, since I dontt enjoy them that much. My choice - no-one forced me to do anything! (As for the Ban-On-Sight thing, that is usually employed by rather sad regiments who try to abuse their power in a game. I would recommend that you never join with your full reg tags to any server that isn't an LB or your private regimental one. Pro Tip). The regiments system is only designed for those who want to experience a more historically realistic environment, and prefer teamplay to just playing alone all of the time. And, happily, regiments are not the majority. The larger ones, at least, now that the old 91st is gone, are relatively tame. Smaller reg, and troll regs (Bush_Pirates, etc) which fragment and troll the community are the issue here. Large regiments are impressive just to see playing on a single server, let alone participate in one, even if it is for an hour or two each week.
I sadly sense that you are one of the disillusioned veterans that has witnessed everything (and there's a lot) there is to see in NW, and has probably had bad experiences of his own in a regiment in the past. I intend to play Warband till the end, and continue to BCoF and Bannerlord as soon as they come out. But please don't try to spread your negativity to those who actually continue, and will continue, enjoying this game.
To the Bitter End.
I don't know how u can reasonably argue that regiments are not the majority. Join a server - most are in a regiment. Regiments keep this game going and floating, my worry is an over reliance on regiments but thats just the type of game it is. As for 'negativity' people still play the game, people still enjoy it but for me its lost its touch. As Karth said, people with undoubtedly buy BCOF I will probably try it, but the time period is of no interest to me or alot of other EU players and therefore I reckon you will see a NA sided community for a change. I can see EU players flocking to a good bannerlord mod for NW which will no doubt be created. Yes I agree there are good regiments, good people in the community, I have been here since 2010 I have met some amazing people. But within that time period I can say with confidence I have never met such a bitchy community as there is in NW. The nice people in the community are usually those guys in regiments who are just your standard ranker who comes on for a few linebattles now and then.
I just wish power could be someway shifted from such a 'clan-centric' type of game. By 'hope for youtubers and steam', I meant that these are the 2 core ways indie developers get sales. Quite frankly with steams new game policy, indie games are flooding the market daily. Will that drown out BCOF? We will see. Open markets are great in the real world, competition is good it creates better and more innovative products at cheaper prices. However in a game such as this is it ideal? Lets be honest seeing as you seem fond of economic terminology. Lets think of the big regiments as monopolies, they dominate the consumer base in servers. Small regiments just like in the big world seriously struggle to get people to actually play on their 'better' server due to the multiplier effect(barriers to entry). With this in mind these big regs rarely improve their servers all that often with the same monotonous maps etc. Large regiments dominate this game for good or bad, leaders have huge impacts on the community for good or bad. You call it negativity, I call it another opinion.
Games that have become clan centric tend to start to become less popular, this is quite common for multiplayer mods, as more clans start to make up the dominative structure of the game itself and uphold it then that is all that's between the game ending and staying alive.
But can NW keep hold of its regiments long enough? this is the question as its that majority that will try to shift, but then again when it comes to other mods that form from NW that are predicted to cause a shift ... they simply don't. Will the game be able to deliver that or will people get themselves torn between the 2 or end up breaking down regiments that simply don't want to pay the price ... we have to remember a lot of people stopped playing MM -> NW as the price was a major "WTF?" moment for people. I for one would of been one of them as I saw nothing different from NW to MM, apart from the lack of the punishing overhead, but fortunately Steam made a major mistake in their departmental administration ... Yey for steam.
The instability of the current community and its attitudes not changing leads me to believe that BCoF will not take off as it has nothing substantial to back that up with. It will seem popular to start with, until the monotony of "Well its just like NW but bigger" ... unfortunately for a lot of people that really is a clincher in carrying on playing or suggesting it to others to play.
Unfortunately what BCoF offers is what has already been accomplished. I'll wait to see what it offers towards the end but I don't see anything changing nor being offered throughout the countless number of Developer blogs.
We'll still see though but without that special something its just shiny graphics on the same principles of what is already out there.
I believe that the 500 player multiplayer, melee system, destructible environements and ACW Era will set it apart in this crowd. If you came to BCoF expecting that FSE would try to "innovate" or something, and spit in the faces of the existing community by taking a huge risk by changing genre or something, then, frankly, you haven't really gotten the scope of the game. It's not necessary to feel a burning passion and/or desire to own BCoF- most of the community has lost that by now - it's enough, imo, to jsut be interested enough to know that it exists, read the Dev Blogs every once in a while, and possibly tell your friends about it. After all, there has been no advertisment up to now, and we have only really seen screens and description of the game - no real gameplay footage. There is no reason for BCoF to be over-hyped, as, Hype, as we saw in many of 2014's games (WD and Destiny, for example), may often lead to a product being under-delivered and disappointing for those who expected miracles.
I will be doing as I do with most games, deciding what its outcome will be when it finally get some youtube vids going ... aka once its already out.
But nothing so far has filled me full of confidence of organised events in order to hit anything near that 500 mark, if that 500 mark is even achievable without instancing.
