CO Word of the Week #9

[mijataso]

Honestly, I am thinking to stop with playing CSII for some time and go back on good old City Skylines

 

[CapnBludd]

With developers tools.

Then use those tools to put all the Packs and the 2500 buildings into the game!

 

[Gonzoez]

They should just stop using seasons for this sort of thing altogether. Just say Q3 and be done with it. No confusion there.

Yes, it's very confusing. What does "Fininsh fall" even mean?? For me, and I'm from the east of Eastern Europe, "Fall" is from September 1st to November 30th. December 1st is already winter.

 

[Angius]

Protip: request a refund on Steam, add a link to this thread in the message, say the game was falsely advertised. Chances are, Valve will refund you even outside of the "no questions asked" window.

 

[tamsi99]

Oh my dear CO .... you gotta be kidding us ...

So you seriously tell us that

• the very first part for modding in BETA is only available around half a year after the game's "release", and it will take many more months until finally full modding is available? Do you realize that modding is what made CS1 a success and that the success of CS2 is directly tied to that as well? I am shocked. I think a few weeks before the game release you said that all that modding would be available "shortly" after the Oct 24th release. Now something that you promised to be available within a few weeks is suddenly taking more than 6 months, maybe even 9-12 months? I am leading software development projects myself and I can assure you that a project team so massively mis-planning would have been fired already by my company (and I am serious about that).
• the next patch, available probably ~6 weeks after the previous patch, does not contain any meaningful performance improvements but only a handful of random bug fixes?
• new improvements will be a rare event in future because you only release them with "real" releases, of which the next one is only at the end of March (best date)? So there won't be any performance improvements or critical bug fixes until at least end of March 2024?? (you already showed that the next patch does not fix a lot of important things, unfortunately)

Obviously we have to live with all the performance issues for many more months until we get to a reasonable state (if ever). Also, and that's I think even worse, we also have to live with a very broken simulation engine of that simulation game for another many more months. Yes, the simulation is broken. Let me give some few key examples:

• the public transport system is completely broken. Vehicles get stuck, create a traffic jam where e.g. all busses or trams queue, and the public transport system goes bananas. Or vehicles randomly disappear (regularly), dropping all passengers on the street / next station, creating overloaded stations, new vehicles need to come from the depot, messing again up the transportation line and so on it goes in a circle and never settles in a kind of stable, normal state. So in short words: the CS2 public transport simulation is currently broken
• the energy simulation is broken and useless, at least if you care to use solar energy. Because disabling the day/night visuals is also impacting the solar power plant, thus rendering the whole concept and challenges with solar energy, batteries, etc. completely useless. This is not just a minor bug, this is what kills the whole energy simulation in my city
• And then we have all the broken simulation with goods export and so on ... and of course the broken simulation with high rent and land value and so on, not to mention all the traffic AI issues and so on. But well, you keep telling us also in the "journey" video with a smile that people saying that the simulation would be broken are basically idiots and it's just a few bugs that need to be fixed. Well, then prove it, "just" fix the few bugs and make us happy. Now. Not in 6-12 months.

Oh, and in case people did not get the message between the lines: Forget about a console release in 1H/2024. In 1H/2024, not even all relevant performance and simulation issues will be fixed, and modding support will only be partly available, and only in "beta" state. So guess where this takes the console release. I'm not even sure CO manages to have any console release in 2024 at all.

Mariina, you now probably complain again, for the 3rd time, about all the evil customers in the forums and the "toxic" atmosphere here. It is obvious that you have not learnt the lesson from the first time. I strongly recommend you first look into the mirror and deeply think about what really went wrong here. Think about the root cause of all the trouble that not just you, poor you, but all the paying customers are going through now. If you are bold enough to be really honest to yourself, you will realize that the real problem here is not your paying customers and the frustrated city builder fans in your communities. It is time for CO to own what you did, to apologize for the huge mess you created and for all the additional delay you announce with every new message.

 

[Catpoint789]

We do have a plan for the fixes, but it might take months in the worst case I’m afraid.

EDIT: As a couple of others have stated, the issue isn’t with PDX, it’s with the actual import/export of assets and stuff, so it isn’t as simple as switching to a different system, unfortunately.

So if the modding platform you’re making that’s supposed to be better than Steam Workshop isn’t actually turning out to be better, why not switch to Workshop? It worked fantastic for CS1 and it’s a ready built platform for both you and the players to use. Your modding platform could still be used for consoles in the future, but it’s becoming really clear that the one you’re making might not be worth it.

I understand wanting to make a better system. I was excited to see what it’d be like. But now you’re saying it might take MONTHS when modding should’ve been included with the base game… so you have to understand why I look at alternatives that already work perfectly. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Straha Yeagar]

So if the modding platform you’re making that’s supposed to be better than Steam Workshop isn’t actually turning out to be better, why not switch to Workshop? It worked fantastic for CS1 and it’s a ready built platform for both you and the players to use. Your modding platform could still be used for consoles in the future, but it’s becoming really clear that the one you’re making might not be worth it.

I understand wanting to make a better system. I was excited to see what it’d be like. But now you’re saying it might take MONTHS when modding should’ve been included with the base game… so you have to understand why I look at alternatives that already work perfectly. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The full quote to provide full context...

"Asset editing is unfortunately suffering from technical issues and as long as players are unable to save and share the assets there’s no point publicly releasing the tools. We do have a plan for the fixes, but it might take months in the worst case I’m afraid."

The issue is not with the PDX mods platform, so Steam Workshop doesn't factor into this at all. The issue is with the tools to create and save the assets themselves in a way that they can be imported. Steam Workshop and PDX mods are just distribution platforms, and without the ability to create assets, there is nothing to distribute. Or in other words, even is Steam Workshop was opened up, there'd be no assets to put there.

 

[Abitus]

So if the modding platform you’re making that’s supposed to be better than Steam Workshop isn’t actually turning out to be better, why not switch to Workshop? It worked fantastic for CS1 and it’s a ready built platform for both you and the players to use. Your modding platform could still be used for consoles in the future, but it’s becoming really clear that the one you’re making might not be worth it.

I understand wanting to make a better system. I was excited to see what it’d be like. But now you’re saying it might take MONTHS when modding should’ve been included with the base game… so you have to understand why I look at alternatives that already work perfectly. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

This is not even about making a better modding platform. The average console player dropped CS1 after completing their first city because, quoting a friend : "I've done everything already and it gets boring".

From that perspective it appears obvious that the goal is, by offering mods to these players, to keep them playing as long as PC players. In theory nobody will buy DLCs for a game they feel like they have already completed months if not years ago. But if there are new mods to discover regularly, then maybe a significant proportion of these players would not get to that completion feelings, and therefore would be more likely to buy new DLCs.

Long story short : the goal is always more money, not a better platform.

Paradox mods could actually be a very worst platform on every aspect and still be profitable if it simply does the tricks of keeping console players on the game for a longer period of time.

 

[Catpoint789]

The issue is not with the PDX mods platform, so Steam Workshop doesn't factor into this at all. The issue is with the tools to create and save the assets themselves in a way that they can be imported. Steam Workshop and PDX mods are just distribution platforms, and without the ability to create assets, there is nothing to distribute. Or in other words, even is Steam Workshop was opened up, there'd be no assets to put there.

Shoot, yeah, okay, that makes sense. That’s a really unfortunate problem, I hope the devs can figure it out quickly.

 

[BoraBora]

Then use those tools to put all the Packs and the 2500 buildings into the game!

The game is still very much unoptimized. Imagine injecting 2500+ assets in it.

So if the modding platform you’re making that’s supposed to be better than Steam Workshop isn’t actually turning out to be better, why not switch to Workshop? It worked fantastic for CS1 and it’s a ready built platform for both you and the players to use. Your modding platform could still be used for consoles in the future, but it’s becoming really clear that the one you’re making might not be worth it.

I understand wanting to make a better system. I was excited to see what it’d be like. But now you’re saying it might take MONTHS when modding should’ve been included with the base game… so you have to understand why I look at alternatives that already work perfectly. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The problem isn't the platform, it's the editor. A Steam Workshop won't change anything as nobody but a handful of beta-testers got the tools to create mods.

Edit: OK, I'm coming late.

 

[anydaytv]

This is not even about making a better modding platform. The average console player dropped CS1 after completing their first city because, quoting a friend : "I've done everything already and it gets boring".

From that perspective it appears obvious that the goal is, by offering mods to these players, to keep them playing as long as PC players. In theory nobody will buy DLCs for a game they feel like they have already completed months if not years ago. But if there are new mods to discover regularly, then maybe a significant proportion of these players would not get to that completion feelings, and therefore would be more likely to buy new DLCs.

Long story short : the goal is always more money, not a better platform.

Paradox mods could actually be a very worst platform on every aspect and still be profitable if it simply does the tricks of keeping console players on the game for a longer period of time.

After reading this it just kind of hit me. Has Microsoft even laid the groundwork for user submitted mods to their platform, because last I knew, they charged $40,000 just to patch a game. (?)

Am I missing something here?

 

[ZEROibis]

After reading this it just kind of hit me. Has Microsoft even laid the groundwork for user submitted mods to their platform, because last I knew, they charged $40,000 just to patch a game. (?)

Am I missing something here?

40K to release a patch!? Sounds crazy but with M$ nothing is a surprise.

 

[Collector78]

We do have a plan for the fixes, but it might take months in the worst case I’m afraid.

Mind to share this plan, so that we can decide for ourselves if it's worth waiting for the fixes or forget about CS2?

Full patch notes will be released on the day the patch goes live, but you can expect fixes for stuck maintenance vehicles and an additional fix for abandoned dogs, who will now be returned to their homes. While the work still continues on the land value, we have an improvement so pollution properly affects the value. And last, but definitely not least, we’re currently testing a fix for the tax bug with crazy high or negative numbers

The most important two (taxation and land value / suitability) are there. Good to hear.
But how come I never heard about stuck maintenance vehicles or abandonded dogs if they are so important that they became top priority?

Just like after WoW8 I recommend to ask a group of experienced players what to work on. Priority determination seems off

 

[Abitus]

After reading this it just kind of hit me. Has Microsoft even laid the groundwork for user submitted mods to their platform, because last I knew, they charged $40,000 just to patch a game. (?)

Am I missing something here?

What was annouced by CO is no "code mods" on consoles, because of the kind of politics you mention (from M$ and probably Sony too, I don't know any details about this but it seems logical).

I think CO's bet is that the strategy I explained could still work with only "asset mods". At least for a significant proportion of console players. At least enough for generating a new source of income compared to CS1.

 

[Potoroo]

The game is still very much unoptimized. Imagine injecting 2500+ assets in it.

If the assets have a sensible number of triangles they should be OK. The question is whether CO has learned how to not severely over-engineer objects that should be very simple.

 

[Collector78]

The Beach properties was supposed to be launched on 2023! Urban Promenades and Modern Architecture, as well as another radio was supposed to be released on Q1 (before March), and Bridges and Ports on Q2 (before end of June).

https://gamerant.com/cities-skylines-2-standard-ultimate-premium-edition-comparison-guide-best-version-differences/

Right now, we have that the Beach Properties will be launched sometimes between now and September, without any more specification (Q3!) I think we will hae Briges and Ports in 2025 and this upsets me a lot.

Of course you are right, but at the same time sorry to say, but who cares about beach properties at the moment? Shall we please focus on making the game playable first?

 

[ImanIdgit]

After reading this it just kind of hit me. Has Microsoft even laid the groundwork for user submitted mods to their platform, because last I knew, they charged $40,000 just to patch a game. (?)

Am I missing something here?

Last I knew, Microsoft stopped charging for patches more than a decade ago.
To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft will not be receiving Mods directly from the users. The users will submit to CS2 and then CS2 submits to MS.

 

[pikachukaki]

So is anything ready for this game? Cause except than road networks nothing else works properly and your priority is to release mod support? For what for independent people fix your game? Thats nice!! Smart!!

 

[ToMissTheMarc]

@co_martsu , I know it must be rough reading through all of these. Sorry you and the devs are having to read all of these posts but I'm guessing you had some idea this would happen with this announcement.

I will say, I am a bit disappointed. I know your team will correct these issues over time and I think that's the expectation from most here, but I will say I have told myself that since 2020 when Cyberpunk released that I would never pre-order again. I paid $89.99 for the Ultimate version of CS2 because of your teams track record and once I started playing the game and made a few adjustments to the graphic settings, I was really upset that these YouTubers almost made me cancel my pre-order because I never experienced any sort of performance issues.

But as the months have gone by, I think the big mistake made was setting expectations. I think if you had made it clear what was truly ahead, there wouldn't be as much backlash. And now I and clearly others feel jipped that Paradox forced this for the holiday season sells, knowing that calling it Early Access would have hurt those sells too.

And perhaps from your viewpoint, it's not early access but even today I experience game breaking bugs where entire sections of my city freeze because transportation is stuck at the platforms or a taxi is stuck in the road waiting to pick someone up that never comes.... This causes ambulances to stop working, fire trucks don't put out fires, etc etc. I have to constantly be on the lookout for frozen areas of the city. And this issue happens with every city I start and gets worse as the city grows larger and larger.

With all that said, I hope there's some way you can answer this question.... What is the serious issue that's delaying everything? I know you're probably not allowed to go into detail but are there any hints you can give?

 

[sam the man5]

"... the Expansion Pass ... on track for its release"? I find that almost an offense and not a good development. We're still waiting for many fixes and UI improvements. And CO is already allocating resources for something we have to pay for? That doesn't make sense.