Manor Lords dev asks folks what should be in the next patch, serious beef between some butchers and walls naturally ensues
Meat men and women vs the ability to cower behind something - man, it's a tough one.
What do you think developer Slavic Magic needs to add to Manor Lords next? That's exactly the question it's recently asked the game's community, kicking off a bit of a barney between butcher fans, town wall desirers, and a fair amount of people who lie somewhere between those two extreme orthodoxies.
Yup, we've barely had time for the body to go cold after the concept of mourning was added to the game via a patch that emerged from beta the other week, and people are already debating where it should go next. To be fair though, this is just democracy in action, you know, the kind that might make you long for feudalism.
All this hoohah was kicked off by a poll put up by Slavic Magic over the weekend on the game's Discord server. It simply asked folks whether the game's next patch should focus on town walls, butchers, or just more bugfixes, quality-of-life features, and balancing.
As of writing the former leads the way with 14,185 votes - 46% of the total, with the butchers sitting on 9,412, and the fixes at 7,437. While that might look like a comfortable lead for the walls, over on the game's subreddit, a fierce propaganda fightback from the butcher buddies has been gaining traction.
"Functional walls are going to take a lot to get put in right and have countless weird edge cases for bugs and errors. The next couple polls are gonna be 'fix walls'," one butcher advocate wrote in a pro-meat thread. "Butchers are going to fit in the existing production chain and be happy. Quick implementation with little testing."
Not wanting to be outdone, the build a wall folks (not those ones) have laid out their own case in some posts. "First, the butcher is a mechanic [I] look forward to, just not as much as the walls and here's why: You can already feed your people," one wrote. "The butcher adds nothing to the gameplay we don't have already, its going to add a new task for a family (or many), a new visual for a building, and some new resources to trade. Walls, on the other end, add immense visual impact to your city, can be used by archers and open the way for [a] siege mechanic, which should later on introduce even more stuff we don't have in the game now."
Basically, the driving force behind the schism looks to be differing opinions as to where the game's currently at development-wise in terms of being a great city builder or war sim, with different folks often caring more about one than the other.
There are also plenty of folks who sit in the neither camp, either because they just want the fixes, or, like this player who gushed about rivers above all else, are more interested in things that aren't options in the poll.
With plenty of time left on the poll, odds are we're in for plenty more wall vs butcher debate going forwards. If you're just getting started with Manor Lods, make sure to check out our beginner's guide to it.