CO Word of the Week #8

[gab3x]

As you may have noticed we had a couple of weeks off for the end of the year, but now everyone is back to working on Cities: Skylines II. Thanks for all the holiday wishes, it was lovely to receive them!

It will be a busy time of the year for us so I’ll quickly go over some highlights for the upcoming months. As we have stated earlier, there is no higher priority than releasing the modding support for the game. The Editor UI is expected to be ready enough for the closed beta in a few weeks. There is an issue with the asset import still that we are hard at work solving. If the issue is not resolved in a reasonable time we’ll consider releasing the editor without the ability to import custom assets and just have the maps and code modding present. Whichever the resolution for the modding support is, we can’t wait to see your creations!

The console versions of the game will also have the Editor (minus code modding) so therefore the Editor is the highest priority but in parallel, we’re also working on the stability and performance on console to make the game available for the console players as soon as possible.
The schedule for the upcoming months and the early access program for modders will be available later.

Before the Editor release, we’ll have a bug fixing patch that will include fixes for issues that have been resolved while the work above is ongoing. You can expect fixes for simulation and visual bugs, both based on internal findings and issues reported by you. The patch notes will be available when the patch is released. Thanks for all the reports!

Last but not least, we have seen a growing tendency of toxicity in our community, something we have not experienced to this extent before. Not only directed towards our devs but also our fellow community members - resulting in people hesitating to engage with the community. In the long run, this will really hurt not only the mood and the happiness of community members but also discourage creativity and modding, something we would be very sad to see.

We have always treasured having the devs present on the different social platforms and having direct communication with the community, but our biggest responsibility will always be protecting the team and making sure they work in a safe environment so they are allowed to do their best staying motivated and productive. So we hope we can all work together for our devs to be able to stay and be continuously active.

As the mentions of this in previous entries do not seem to have moved the needle, perhaps you have a constructive way of telling us how we can improve the way we communicate with each other. Should we add more moderation or is the only option to pull back our engagement on our end? How can we make sure the community is a safe place for you to share your thoughts and hopes for the game?

Here are a few ideas to start with:

• Give feedback and disagree, but do it constructively! Be specific and detailed, and don't worry about what others think. We have a diverse community so opinions and experiences will always vary.
• Assume people mean well and remember that tone can be hard to convey in writing.
• Help us make the community a nice place for everyone by showing your fellow mayors how to give constructive feedback.
• Always be kind

And we wish everyone happiness and success in 2024!

Sincerely,
Mariina

Early on in forums I have noticed that you became victims of a trend of vicious attacks by users who claim to be passionate CS players but when you would click on their profiles in Steam you would notice quite often that they had minimal hours of play , sometimes literally less than 10.

I then realised you have a lot of trolls who are attacking you as a pile on rather then each individual troll finding their own reason to be unhappy about something specific.

Before the release of the game it was about your business model but then as you allowed early adopters to show early gameplay they would focus on unfinished aspects of the game as if that was the final release.

I think you should not have made such a teaser campaign but it’s easy to say this post festum. There are a lot of immature individuals hiding behind anonimity who feel like they can say whatever they want without any consequences. Doing one upmanship to one another to show who can be most brutal - it became a game.

To be frank I had to stop playing the game due to its issues and lack of mods and assets is not making me want to play again until they come. I bought a PC specifically for the release of this game so it’s frustrating.

But I am a middle aged, cultured person so I react with measure. Not everyone is.

What to do now?
The genie is out of the bottle. I would heavily moderate (transparently) and focus your efforts into resolving simulation issues, bugs and enabling editors. When your creators take over they will have much more capacity to provide solutions community needs.

You know you have a special thing going. Keep doing it, lead with work and stop listening to trolls. They are not our community, our community is decent people wanting to play and improve worlds best city game.

X

 

[cestes]

Happy 2024, Mariina. This is not the first official statement of 2024 I — or apparently, a lot of others — was expecting. I hoped Colossal Order would return with renewed enthusiasm for fixing problems, but honestly, this WoW was really disappointing and condescending.

I love what you said about tone being difficult to “hear” online so please allow me to say that everything I share is with the hopes that CS2 truly becomes the best city simulator out there!

No matter how much you’d like to, you’re not going to control toxicity. I get it, Paradox mods can zap what they find offensive whether it’s actually toxic or not, but toxicity is a much broader issue than Colossal Order. You aren’t going to control it on other platforms like Reddit.

This is probably also a good time to point out that disappointment, frustration, and criticism are not toxic. I’m really worried that legitimate criticism is being labeled toxic.

I would encourage you, Mariina, to lead by example when it comes to toxicity. Stop blaming the customer. Stop suggesting a game may not be for certain people after the refund window has closed. Stop trying to revise history. Dialogue in a way that you’d like to see everyone else do so! You’re the CEO of CO, lead by example and show us the community you’d like to be part of.

I keep seeing CO encourage feedback. That’s great, but honestly I’m not seeing a lot of that feedback being listened to. It seemed pretty clear to me that a lot of people wanted Move It and bikes in CS2. Pretty basic. Those were left out of CS2. You’ve received so much feedback that you’re likely never going to be able to incorporate even a fraction of it into the game. A ton of people have been asking for a roadmap, a list of issues you are actively working on fixing, or anything else concrete. This is something that would immediately give the community clarity as to what’s being worked on. This is really low level fruit to build trust and provide real transparency, but the community has only gotten excuses as to why this is too hard or complicated or expensive. This would have been a fantastic start to 2024 and shown that you were listening.

I’m probably alone in thinking this, but maybe you should stop the WoW. Or better yet, just focus on facts. Like, here are the bugs we worked on this week. Or, here are the pieces of feedback we’ve added to the game or roadmapped into a DLC. Looking back over the past WoWs they’ve been very hectic kind of like a pendulum swinging back and forth between blaming the community and making halfhearted excuses for the state of the games release.

Lighting struck for CO when CS1 came out in the aftermath of Sim City’s death. You’ve had nearly a decade of growth. Presumably, a decade of listening to what people want. The call to action can’t always be “let us know what you want to see in the game” because we’ve told. You should have a treasure trove of ideas that a lot of developers would be grateful for.

Stop blaming everyone else. CS2 is the game you made and sold. People expecting what you marketed and sold, is not toxic. It’s not. Focus on fixing the game for the people that have already payed for it (PC players) and only then focus on porting it to the console. If you don’t focus on the existing customers, the people who have already given you their hard earned money, the long term sustainability of CS as a franchise and CO’s reputation is at risk and the likelihood of future customers trusting you will diminish.

Please, for the sake of the community and CO’s continued success, which most of us really want, please do better.

 

[purplegamer]

Here's some feedback delivered from an honest and frank place:

Mariina, I'm no longer confident you're the right person to be leading the messaging; you've had stumble after stumble that has only further soured the relationship between CO and fans. It's astounding to me that after the quiet of the holidays, most of this the Word of the Week was spent hiding behind the aggrieved status of victims of toxicity. As I mentioned in a previous response, we can't see examples of this toxicity (as defined by you) so we're left to believe it includes the many critical responses you've received here on your forum or elsewhere around the internet. And in that light, threats of pulling back involvement of your team is an extremely bad look.

You delivered this product knowing it was unfinished. You delivered this product on the back of a dishonest advertising campaign. You delivered this product without a solid plan to move forward and your team has consistently demonstrated this by appealing for feedback on what we would like to see prioritized. What you haven't done is demonstrate how you intend to make this right. And I'm sorry, but repairing the game and getting it to an acceptable state is not enough. That is the minimum you should strive for and it's what we expect (and, yes, are entitled to) as paying customers.

So what is your plan, above getting the game into an acceptable state? How does CO intend to make this right?

 

[TrevorHall]

the modders shouldn't have to fear for reactions from the community.

I would suspect that modders will enjoy a different style of feedback anyway, as mods are free, so there is no implied contract to provide anything, when compared to an item which was purchased. So, when someone doesn't like a mod, they sometimes add a helpful comment "seemed to make my game run slower" Etc., explaining why they uninstalled it, or often no feedback at all.

 

[Abitus]

About the issue at hand, I think people here needs to realize that we're talking to a company, with stock holders and all that. Not to a single person. They're probably never going to apologize for the way the game was released and admit they were wrong. That's bad for business. They already released that PR video that had "damage control" written all over it. That's, sadly, the best that we're gonna get, even though it was far from an explanation (or an excuse) that we look for.

I so, so strongly disagree with this.

Firstly because, in the case of CO and CS2, I totally fail to understand how an honest communication would be worse than the current attitude, which as we all can clearly see, feeds people frustration and deception rather than calming it. Maybe I'm too stupid to understand the big rules of big business, but speaking for myself I would be a lot more satisfied with an honest communication which starts with acknowledgement of what they failed. I'm now at a point where my frustration comes at 90% from this bad communication rather than the current state of the game. I already said that a few times but it costs nothing to say it once more : I totally can understand a failed launch, or bugs, or that I have to be patient. But feeling fooled and abused by people I gave my money to is something totally not acceptable for me.

And secondly because from my perspective, this kind of mentality is exactly why the world we live in feels more and more absurd : companies are totally disconnected from the real world, meaning from the reality their customers are experiencing daily. Companies all over the world are getting more and more power, and use it with more and more dishonesty, losing people trust a little more every day. It's because of this "honesty is bad for business" mentality that each day more people are advocating and fighting for the end of capitalism.

If someone needs to realize something, it's not customers but really those kind of companies (meaning the ones thinking like what you expressed - deep down I still hope that's not the case of CO, but I admit this becomes harder to trust every day that passes). We will not prevent the world from collapsing if we keep acting like they're right to think like they think. Honesty is not "bad for business". It's on the contrary what the world desperately needs right now.

 

[purplegamer]

Another suggestion: A user recently asked why moderators were allowed to voice opinions as a moderator and proposed that they should have a separate user account. A moderator responded that no one is allowed to have two accounts, per the rules of the community. This is fine, but what's not okay is that moderators get to interact and share opinions like anyone else--including by interacting with posts with likes, agrees, etc., but it seems a recent change was made that does not allow us to similarly react to moderator posts. This creates a very unfair imbalance that further segregates moderators from users and should be reverted.

 

[Skeksis25]

Since the mods are out in full force, how about a simple appeal to CO and most game companies in this industry.

Can you guys please stop releasing broken games and endless DLC for broken products before blaming your customers for being upset? Can you guys hold up your end of the bargain first? You have benefited from the sales of a broken product, got to the top 10 of Steam's 2023 highest revenue games, sold DLC that is nowhere near close to coming out. But its our fault for being upset? The people who spent a good chunk of money on a broken, deceptive product. Is there going to be any accountability on CO's part or should we all stop wasting each others' time and move on?

 

[jj65]

Ah yes, only approve the 'positive' ones; delete the criticism.

That is not what she said. She said to remove the posts with toxicity and hate. There is a huge difference between being constructively critical, and just hating on the devs and being mean and nasty toward them and other platform users.

ex. The devs are just lazy and release garbage! (This is being toxic and hateful. It helps nobody.)
ex. I would like the devs to prioritize performance over getting the asset editor up and running. I keep having crashes to the desktop on my machine. (This helps the devs know what you really need, and it lets them know that the game is actually crashing for you.)

I'm personally grateful that they released the game even though there are bumps in the road. I enjoy playing it. I hope all the devs had a great break and wish them well in continuing to build CS2. It's a great starting point and a tremendously complex simulation. I really appreciate their hard work and passion for the project.

 

[jj65]

Since the mods are out in full force, how about a simple appeal to CO and most game companies in this industry.

Can you guys please stop releasing broken games and endless DLC for broken products before blaming your customers for being upset? Can you guys hold up your end of the bargain first? You have benefited from the sales of a broken product, got to the top 10 of Steam's 2023 highest revenue games, sold DLC that is nowhere near close to coming out. But its our fault for being upset? The people who spent a good chunk of money on a broken, deceptive product. Is there going to be any accountability on CO's part or should we all stop wasting each others' time and move on?

I would say this is what refunds are for. If one is unhappy with a product on Steam, one can ask for a refund. Simple.

 

[Skeksis25]

I would say this is what refunds are for. If one is unhappy with a product on Steam, one can ask for a refund. Simple.

Or how about this. Hear me out. STOP RELEASING BROKEN GAMES!

 

[purplegamer]

I would say this is what refunds are for. If one is unhappy with a product on Steam, one can ask for a refund. Simple.

The Steam refund policy does not apply to games that have been played for 2 hours or more. Additionally, it only extends for 2 weeks from the moment the game is first played (I believe there is also a restriction based on the age of the purchase if unused)--which just so happens to have expired (if you played it for any amount of time at launch) before Mariina admitted that the game was not ready for launch. That's a very troubling coincidence.

 

[cestes]

I would say this is what refunds are for. If one is unhappy with a product on Steam, one can ask for a refund. Simple.

Unfortunately, CO didn’t admit until after the initial refund period had passed that what they were selling, was delayed. Steam refused my request. So no, it’s not that simple. The system relies on a level of transparency and honesty that didn’t exist in this situation.

 

[Collector78]

Happy new year,

Although I really appreciated all the great work of the modding Community in CS1, I'm a bit surprised to see that the first priority of the team is to arrange modding support. Somehow this is giving me the feeling that there is (still?) an underestimation of the game breaking bugs we are facing (foremost the taxation bug and the land value / suitability bug). It will lead to a situation that modders start to provide workarounds for bugs instead of being creative.

Which brings me to the 'toxic behavior'. Theory books will tell you that the best way of reducing toxic behavior is communication. Just have a look at all the threads and bug reports on this forum and you will see communication is lacking. It's nice to have this "Word of the week", but personally I would prefer communication that makes things clear.
Communication I received was a warning for "necromancy behavior" because I reacted on a topic that was a few months old. Apparently that's not allowed, although the reply button is available. On the other side, I saw (almost) no feedback on any of the threads I raised or bugs I reported (from CO). It makes me wonder if CO's communication priorities are matching the tips in the theory books.
As a suggestion, I would propose to give us players insight on what bugs are being picked up and when we might expect a solution. It will raise awareness and understanding, but it will also increase communication in general. In the first few patches, besides performance, lots of changes were made but only few of them were at the top of the players' priority lists. Align priorities with your customers and toxic behavior might reduce.

p.s. it's a bit ironic to protect your dev team from toxic behavior after throwing them in front of the bus by enforcing the release of an unfinished game. Did you apologize to them?

 

[Licenturion]

I’m probably alone in thinking this, but maybe you should stop the WoW. Or better yet, just focus on facts. Like, here are the bugs we worked on this week. Or, here are the pieces of feedback we’ve added to the game or roadmapped into a DLC. Looking back over the past WoWs they’ve been very hectic kind of like a pendulum swinging back and forth between blaming the community and making halfhearted excuses for the state of the games release.

I fully agree with this. These WOW posts usually leave people disappointed that their issue is not adressed or even raise more questions or worst case, create more disappointment and hostility towards CO or eachother.

I really really encourage to see how other developers are doing this like for instance Call of Duty

Take a look at their official communication channel: https://trello.com/b/n58Qr7mZ/modern-warfare-iii-sledgehammer-games-treyarch

It has issues that are resolved, current issues, biggest feedback they have received and so on.

This is not the only game that does this. I am part of several communities and also early acces games with development smaller than CO and they all have clear roadmaps. No fluff, no funny pitches, no odd takes...just facts. It will give more positive engagement if players can actively see the needle move towards the goal and have actual thing to look forward to without being vague and with clear priorities.

Because priorities seem over the place lately. Then it is performance that is top priority, then the editor, then it is the mod platform coming very close after release, then suddely their is a lot of mention of the console version, then it is simulation CPU speed. If everything is a priority, then nothing really is...

I hope the trello example is seen as constructive critism and I am sure more players would prefer to see a dry table with issues and goals being worked on with a potential target date, instead of just prose that doesn't adress anything that people want to know, resulting in even more pushback. This also goes for the lady that does the official streams that always goes for 'fun and giggles' handpicking one or three comments and ignoring the hundreds of valid player concerns asked in live chat every time.

The game director of Overwatch is also a big fan of these WOW-style writeups with some jokes, some issues and some teases and usually has to apologize 2 days later as well (which was the case this week again) because this kind of communication sets the whole game community on fire resulting in several YouTubers and news sites highlighting this, putting even more oil on the fire.

PC Gamer also has a write up about this WOW https://www.pcgamer.com/cities-skyl...-pull-back-our-engagement-with-the-community/ . My post is even quoted in another article https://dotesports.com/general/news...equences-for-toxic-players-after-rough-launch

 

[Lucododosor]

Another suggestion: A user recently asked why moderators were allowed to voice opinions as a moderator and proposed that they should have a separate user account. A moderator responded that no one is allowed to have two accounts, per the rules of the community. This is fine, but what's not okay is that moderators get to interact and share opinions like anyone else--including by interacting with posts with likes, agrees, etc., but it seems a recent change was made that does not allow us to similarly react to moderator posts. This creates a very unfair imbalance that further segregates moderators from users and should be reverted.

Usually we have to manually enable reactions once we post a comment as a "regular" user. Some of us just forget to do so from time to time

Like with this comment, I had to edit it after having posted it just to enable reactions - and you should be able to react to it now

 

[pjpe]

Happy new year,

Although I really appreciated all the great work of the modding Community in CS1, I'm a bit surprised to see that the first priority of the team is to arrange modding support. Somehow this is giving me the feeling that there is (still?) an underestimation of the game breaking bugs we are facing (foremost the taxation bug and the land value / suitability bug). It will lead to a situation that modders start to provide workarounds for bugs instead of being creative.

Which brings me to the 'toxic behavior'. Theory books will tell you that the best way of reducing toxic behavior is communication. Just have a look at all the threads and bug reports on this forum and you will see communication is lacking. It's nice to have this "Word of the week", but personally I would prefer communication that makes things clear.
Communication I received was a warning for "necromancy behavior" because I reacted on a topic that was a few months old. Apparently that's not allowed, although the reply button is available. On the other side, I saw (almost) no feedback on any of the threads I raised or bugs I reported (from CO). It makes me wonder if CO's communication priorities are matching the tips in the theory books.
As a suggestion, I would propose to give us players insight on what bugs are being picked up and when the might expect a solution. It will raise awareness and understanding, but it will also increase communication in general. In the first few patches, besides performance, lots of changes were made but only few a them were at the top of the players' priority lists. Align priorities with your customers and toxic behavior might reduce.

It's interesting when you go through each of the C:S2 forums on Paradox Plaza and click on "Show only dev responses".

Bug reports has pages, but its the community manager acknowledging they'll look in to bugs. Official information has all of the dev diaries and word of the week posts.

Outside of that? Nothing under Suggestions, nothing under Analyze and Speculate, and 5 posts in the main "Cities: Skylines 2" sub-forum, only 2 of those being in this year.

If CO wants to have a more positive community, maybe they should start actually being part of the community.

 

[tweety80]

Although I really appreciated all the great work of the modding Community in CS1, I'm a bit surprised to see that the first priority of the team is to arrange modding support.

Same... but after a while, I may understand the point.
It is a guess, but it could be that CO does understand how small their own team is. They need help and the best way to help is to ask the community to fix a lot of things.
It is much, much faster.

If I see myself as an unimportant player, the game is not fun because I always have to stop with about 100K citizens. My hardware does not allow bigger cities, but the game is designed for bigger cities and not for villages. With a mod that fixes demand, adds a large amount of decorations, and adds smaller service buildings, I could have fun.

Maybe CO sees that they have to work on the game to bring it to a much better state for the console.
-> The modders fix what is is fixable via gameplay and the devs may fix the CPU performance problem. That is important because, currently, the game does not run nicely on a console.

Maybe I am wrong, but that is at least one reason why CO wants to bring mod support before fixing performance and bugs.

 

[purplegamer]

Usually we have to manually enable reactions once we post a comment as a "regular" user. Some of us just forget to do so from time to time

Like with this comment, I had to edit it after having posted it just to enable reactions - and you should be able to react to it now

Ooh, that's interesting. Is there a rule for moderators to enable the feature or is it optional?

 

[Swordsman1219]

To rehash points I've made and others have made but that I personally would like response to from someone "on high" (i.e. recognition that I/others are being seen, validated, and heard.)

CS2 is still a dumpster fire 3-4 months post release... Mariina made promises (such as modding tools/map editors) being available within the first week of release; (there were plenty of press releases/blurbs that indicated such.) This has not happened AT ALL, instead all we get is more vague platitudes and nonsense blathering from on high. As others have said, the devs made many promises that they just can't complete. The classic American expression is that they have bit off more than they can chew and that is 100% true for CS2.

CS2 will go down in flames, it's already happening, it's a massive, slow, death but there is no redeeming it or preventing it from happening. Speaking only for myself, I haven't played the game in many weeks and I am sure that is true for lots of others too. Due to the many broken promises by the developers and unmet/broken promises for features therein, it's inevitable that people will get bored with a broken game.

The game isn't "good enough for release" (and frankly wasn't when it was shoved out the door to as you say make quarterly profits.) CS2 was a cashgrab.
What the community has responded with is absolute outrage because as I said the game is a dumpster fire of bugs and broken or incorrectly functioning features. This was a game that has been in development for YEARS with alleged quality testing (though how true that is, is anyone's guess.)

Very few bugs/feature fixes have actually been fixed, features that were again promised within DAYS of release (Maps/Map Editor/Asset Editor/Mods/Functioning Freight and Postal Systems) have been punted into the sun to be released only the Good Lord knows when because 1. We have no provided roadmap of progress and 2. the CEO/other community/company officials here have taken Political Doublespeak/Marketing 101 and keep speaking out of both sides of their mouths while saying NOTHING of actual substance. After spending a King's ransom (at least at my paycheque level) for a product that was ballyhooed and puffed up like the world's greatest souffle, we are left with a wet, soggy, unbaked custardy mess of a product.

That's not on us as a community, that's not on "toxicity" that's on YOU, the game developers. We deserve better.

 

[Lucododosor]

Ooh, that's interesting. Is there a rule for moderators to enable the feature or is it optional?

The only "rule" we have regarding this is that we must clearly differentiate when we're posting as a "regular" user and when we're posting in our role as moderators.
When we post as moderators, there's a purple-ish background in our posts and sometimes we also use a yellow/orange font so it's got more of a warning-like look. Those posts are not meant to be "reactable" in any way.

As this post has nothing of that, as you can see, it means I'm not posting in my role as moderator.