CO Word of the Week #15

[Dumbell]

Never been on the refund bandwagon. But you people should be sued

 

[timfrombriz]

Colossal Order certainly is the gift that keeps on giving, with these WotW's

You should consider rebranding your company name from Colossal Order to Monumental Failure.

What blows me away is the ongoing lack of daily engagement with your loyal remaining participating community and listening to whats being said and addressing the discussions here. Your absent and ignorant. Your few remaining fans are invaluable assets to repairing the damage you've done, let me explain... because it feels as if Colossal Order are completely oblivious to what the future will bring.

Your game is tarnished permanently, any new players will be basing purchasing decisions on reviews left by other players. All those google search results for CS2 will be of your launch state and its failure. Your game is the biggest flop of 2023. Most players dont change their review after they abandon a game. Your player base has disintegrated, and you fail to nurture and respect the ones remaining, instead you throw more false promises out and under deliver and ignore them in engagement. Do you think these players will have respect and trust with your company in future even if you manage to repair the product to a significant degree?

You need a player base to sell DLC's, I think you need to wake up and see reality, and stop asking players for patience, and start working with a sense of urgency(for business survival )to deliver what you hyped 6 months ago but instead gave us a unpolished pile of early access junk.

 

[Orinsul]

Thank you for the mahi!
Disheartening to see the vileness in the responses here.
Keep up the good work CO

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Isn't that yhe publishers job to handlr communication, statements and infotmation? Like we haven't heard anything from paradox for mpnths as far as I am aware. Isn't that their job, isn't that why development studios get a publisher? Why are they not saying someyhing. At this point yes, the conversatiom should be taken directly to paradox, it's literally their job and they are failing.

This might be true, Im not versed in how gaming companies operate. The issue I have is the constant theme of CO blaming others for their problems. The release was the players fault. The delay was due to too high expectations. The publishing is Paradox’s fault. Everyone is blamed except themselves.

The last WOTW was overwhelmingly received positivity as CO finally accepting a grain of responsibility. People are willing even now to give CO the benefit of the doubt, but yet they still are spitting in everyone’s faces. I even wrote it’s a good first step forward. And now we are too impatient like a petulant child it seems for wanting more information and transparency after 6 months of nothing. If they can’t handle the timelines that they set, announce it as so and give the refunds.

As a result, I have 0 trust in what the CEO says is the right one, unless proven otherwise. It’s also a pathetically poor excuse; she is the CEO of the company, surely she must have some sort of knowledge of how her company is progressing? And we are in the Paradox Forums! Where else can information be shared except here?

 

[nishiogawkun]

Refunds please.

 

[-Erin-]

I understand what you are meaning and I do understand your frustration as well.

But I honestly think that Paradox cannot tell us anything right now as they would have to have reliable information from CO first.
And after all what we know and learn from various statements, they cannot rely on CO anymore.

I have no insight in what is going on at CO, but I do have my professional experiences with project work in the IT environment (admittedly just some 25 years though). Based on that, I am currently assuming that CO is literally disfunctional at this moment.

Obviously they aren't capable of fixing the reported bugs quickly. For sure - as proven by the game's current state - they weren't capable of delivering such a project even after years of delay - which carries a message in itself.
Let me explain this a bit more: sometimes it turns out that your project goals have been too ambitious. That just happens. Each and everywhere.
But when you do realize that, you do have two options: you bring in more manpower or you reduce the project scope.
Obviously they haven't done either of that in a sufficient manner or they just weren't aware in which state the project was. And that - again - after a delay of three years.
That is bad project management. There is no other word for it.

Even their WoW's are not only inconsistent, but postponed, delayed, suspended (look at the "art department's WoW" desaster).

To put it in clear words: they even don't get their art department to produce some lines.

In total that means a complete failure of CO at each and every aspect.

And now tell me what Paradox should make out of this mess? Don't get me wrong, I have no connection with nor any interest in Paradox, but currently I just see them at the receiving end of all of this mess.

Yeah, it's a mess, I just don't understand what is happening at CO and how it came to this point. And regarding the art department WOTW, I mentioned that too, that's just umbelievable...

I mean, the fact that they can't even get an art WOTW (a few paragraphs of text) ready in a week, wait, no, 2 weeks now, after promising it speaks for itself imo.

 

[-Erin-]

This might be true, Im not versed in how gaming companies operate. The issue I have is the constant theme of CO blaming others for their problems. The release was the players fault. The delay was due to too high expectations. The publishing is Paradox’s fault. Everyone is blamed except themselves.

The last WOTW was overwhelmingly received positivity as CO finally accepting a grain of responsibility. People are willing even now to give CO the benefit of the doubt, but yet they still are spitting in everyone’s faces. I even wrote it’s a good first step forward. And now we are too impatient like a petulant child it seems for wanting more information and transparency after 6 months of nothing. If they can’t handle the timelines that they set, announce it as so and give the refunds.

As a result, I have 0 trust in what the CEO says is the right one, unless proven otherwise. It’s also a pathetically poor excuse; she is the CEO of the company, surely she must have some sort of knowledge of how her company is progressing? And we are in the Paradox Forums! Where else can information be shared except here?

Definietly agree, last week I felt some hope, I thought maybe their approach will finally change, but here we are... 2 weeks later, after being told there is some exciting news last week, there is nothing

 

[sjt375]

Incredibly disappointing. There appears to be just a continual inability to hit schedules that were committed to for the community, and without any explanation or contrition. I haven't played since January, and I am losing hope that the game is going to be in a reasonable state any time soon.

 

[Boonatix]

Whelp, this WoW really backfired... and leaves me puzzled as to why you do not learn from past mistakes I really enjoyed the game a lot since release and built a lot, but came to a halt right now as it misses just way to much. I am baffled that you need some kind of mod asset import to update your own game assets. I am baffled that there is o shared timeline and open beta / early access to let the community participate and play around. I am just... playing something else now

 

[Lyken2010]

Another wall of text about nothing. No dates, no examples just bla bla bla good cooperation with modders.

 

[wingscatcher91]

Let me guess, you guys have been cooking for yet another week. Are you guys still developing this game?

It's just so frustrating and sad that you did not learn anything from your own creation CS1 and brought to us this failure of a game CS2 which is nowhere near what we were promised or advertised. We paid a lot of money for a buggy game, lots of issues, no DLCs that were promised after initial release, no proper timeline on fixing things or bringing features. You should have released this shipwreck as an early access and never charged us so much money to start with. I for one, would not even consider buying any of your future DLCs with this game just for spite in not funding your company ever again.

What a massive let down with fake promises and no actual results.
Good luck with this one, you've let an entire community and your customers down.
If you're stuck, don't know what and how to fix it, just be honest with people, stop telling us stories and hype it up for weeks and weeks with literally no results.

 

[yalex]

I'm not sure if there's anything included in this Word of the Week that couldn't have been said last week?
Next month will mark six months since the release date of CS2 and the same abstract messaging seems to be a common theme.

How long are people reasonably expected to wait?

I mentioned that the previous Word of the Week was a refreshing change, as it showed a degree of candidness, unfortunately this week has returned to the patten of obfuscation.

 

[KTK PRO]

I have a quick question: What if I have already downloaded and used mods in CS2 and want to use/switch to CS2 mods? Will I be able to continue my previously modded worlds using CS2 mods?

 

[Nicthurne]

If this is your response. Where is the publisher? Why is there nothing from them? How can you be satisfied as CEO with them treating your (already annoyed) customers so poorly?

Lol I hope you don't seriously think that Colossal Order is satisfied with how Paradox' publishing and PR teams have been doing.

 

[Nicthurne]

I really do feel that it's time for a leadership change at CO. We're past the point where this type of unclear and non-committal communication is acceptable. There seems to be zero sense of urgency and no clear goals or timetables. This type of leadership is not likely to ever deliver the game that was promised, and certainly not when player patience has reached a breaking point.

I urge you to change course and change strategy, and quickly. I don't know how many more of these nebulous announcements the game can survive. It already feels like it is practically abandoned.

We know that the reason for this is Paradox, not Colossal Order.
Pdx are the ones who decide when they announce dates, yet they tell CO to write weekly non-communication.

 

[Lyken2010]

We know that the reason for this is Paradox, not Colossal Order.
Pdx are the ones who decide when they announce dates, yet they tell CO to write weekly non-communication.

And you think that PDX does not share any information intentionally to cut their revenue even more? CO is responsible for the game and if they had any solid information about the progress PDX would not hold it purposely.

 

[Nicthurne]

And you think that PDX does not share any information intentionally to cut their revenue even more? CO is responsible for the game and if they had any solid information about the progress PDX would not hold it purposely.

Have you followed CK3? PDX absolutely does hold back announcements simply in order to release them at some more marketable dates, no matter what the impact on development is.

 

[Lyken2010]

Have you followed CK3? PDX absolutely does hold back announcements simply in order to release them at some more marketable dates, no matter what the impact on development is.

And you still think that in the current situation of players leaving CS2 and all that shitstorm with no timelines, they would hold up any information to find more marketable moment ?

 

[backface]

Have you followed CK3? PDX absolutely does hold back announcements simply in order to release them at some more marketable dates, no matter what the impact on development is.

At this point and situation in CS2, they might not be a huge number of players playing the game and buying DLCs in the future, and Paradox and CO should be worried about it, because CS2 it's a long time product with many DLC incoming to make more profit.

 

[Xperian]

Disappointing.