CO Word of the Week #9

[timfrombriz]

I went and checked the game out on Steam after reading your post. While it looks complex and probably has a bit of a learning curve, it looks super cool! Reminds me of Transport Fever 2 a lot. If HC's devs can do it, Colossal Order definitely can.

Cool. Im going to go check it out. Not been on my radar, so thanks for mentioning the game. Im all about helping devs where they do a good job.

 

[Catpoint789]

You guys killed all that with a buggy game that does fantastic photos of the same skylines over and over again.

This is a really good point that I've seen talked about a little bit. Sure, CS2 does look really good, but you're right: it's just the same buildings and nothing can look very unique right now. With CS1, every picture I saw of a city was almost completely different.

 

[zeriikler]

can't wait to play on console. hope all is well and yall had an excellent holiday!

 

[PleaseFixBugs]

While I am glad to see previously infuriated people are feeling less so, I have such a difficulty understanding the anger in the first place. How does a $50 video game that someone purchased for amusement cause such anger? I mean, I might understand such from someone whose livelihood relied on it. Yet, streamers such as Biffa and City Planner whose livelihoods DO rely on it seem quite content, if slightly disappointed. I also understand that $50 can be a lot of money to some people. 10 years ago, $50 would have been the difference between eating ramen for a week or purchasing a game, so I can understand the value of $50.

While not calling out this poster personally, in general I just want to put a reminder to the community that emotional responses aren't always rational. Stepping back and taking a breath to allow our logical side to analyze a situation really helps to put things into perspective. For me, most games published by Paradox are games I expect to play for many years. Few other games do I expect to spend more than a few weeks or possibly months playing. As such, I can have a lot more patience with Paradox and their development studios. I know that eventually, the masterpieces that they are able to create are worth it.

I don't believe CO has ever consciously chosen to lie to us, but, at the very least, been guilty of being too optimistic. While many feel the game is currently unplayable, many more play it regularly. Personally, I'm waiting for a few more bug fixes before I wish to play regularly. Having worked in software development, there were definitely times where I seemed to be 98% complete with an aspect of a project, just needing to correct one last thing that wasn't working correctly. Then finding that the hurdle was actually a cliff that was ridiculously difficult to traverse. This was especially true when trying to integrate with third-party software.

CO devs, I understand you. I appreciate you. I trust you. I believe the majority of the community do as well. Keep working on making the best city builder you can. With the foundation that is there, I can't wait to see what C:SII is a few years from now!

I don't think it's about money at all. Imagine you are at a restaurant that you have been dining in for the last ten years. The restaurant was recently refurbished and changed the menu. You had high hopes for it and it turned out to be really disappointing. The reason why so many people complain about the game and write posts in this forum is that we absolutely love the game. The reactions and public announcements so far have made people like me heartbroken because they were basically telling us they would stick to the plans to achieve KPIs and milestones, regardless of whether the game is finished or not. They don't care about the players and the game. All they want to do now is to make their higher-ups/ investors happy and make money.

Since the announcement of release dates, I have been watching/ reading weekly posts. I pre-ordered the game even though I had XGP.

As a software project manager myself, I would also protect my team from toxicity, but saying such things in a weekly announcement that has not been updated for the past month seems downright provocative.

Back to your opinion, I don't think CO is intentionally lying to us. They also want to deliver a good game. As for now, the CO management team just wants to stick to the plans assigned by probably Paradox and get this shit over.

 

[dostillevi]

Back to your opinion, I don't think CO is intentionally lying to us.

They probably aren't, but if they aren't then either their developers are unable to estimate effort or the level of effort wasn't being communicated up to marketing and community managers. These are all terrible possibilities and none of them suggest we'll see CO right this ship. Honestly, you don't promise a feature is a few weeks out and then change your tune to the feature being a year out without some major miscommunication or lack of competency.

I truly hope CO can recover from this, but I'm no longer holding my breath. Now I'm just sad.

 

[Johnnysims]

The beach DLC will be released in finnish Falls. Good time for the swimmers ...
Dog fix IT s like a punch in the eye.
This is migrating from drama to comedy. They are on the good way!

She literally said it's on track to release on its date. Which is Q1. Not Fall. End of winter, beginning of spring.
Finnish fall is the latest that the asset importer will be fixed. That's when you can get assets and region packs the promised (long ago, I know).

 

[Johnnysims]

As an ultimate edition buyer, I am not one bit offended.
In actual fact, I'm slightly offended that as an ultimate edition buyer, I got no landmarks. Like, seriously?

The pre-order bonus? Why not? You didn't pre-order?
Not saying you had to, but that's just what it is.
As for not being offended, that's fine. I just don't think it right to forever delay DLC that people have already paid for. I didn't buy Ultimate Edition, I'm just saying that would cause another sour taste in the mouth.

 

[anydaytv]

The pre-order bonus? Why not? You didn't pre-order?
Not saying you had to, but that's just what it is.
As for not being offended, that's fine. I just don't think it right to forever delay DLC that people have already paid for. I didn't buy Ultimate Edition, I'm just saying that would cause another sour taste in the mouth.

Truth? I didn't preorder because I wasn't aware by not preordering I'd be missing things like The London Eye, Notre Dame, etc.
Knowing that's what I'd be missing, I'd have preordered, and still jumped over the fence where I'm at for two reasons:

1. Preordering should be a tool for developers to gauge excitement about their product, and not FOMO. So, now what? If I ever want to do a London based city, I'm just -- out? It couldn't be "The Colossal Headquarters", or a couple special bridges or something? I wouldn't have minded it at all if it was a preorder bonus and an add-on for me. It's the exclusivity of pretty major Landmarks on a preorder at some random point in time or it's gone.

2. Back to the addon argument: the "Ultimate Edition" --- kind of implies something in the name. It's not the "Mega Edition", the "Super Edition", or even "Deluxe Edition". No, it's the "Ultimate Edition".

Anyway, I'm not that choked up about it, it'll probably be an addon in the future, or something. You get my point.

 

[Boonatix]

That is honestly the first WotW that is disappointing for me

I do not understand, why does the "creator pack" with all the cool assets that you teased need a special import with the editor... or something like that, if I read that corredctly? Why can't it not be updated independently with a DLC / Patch? I am honestly pretty frustrated reading that it could take until autumn to get that... as it probably will include so many cool buildings that we city painters desperately need.

Also, what about important features for us city painters? Like being able to prevent buildings from leveling up and keep them as they are? Like the land value issue that makes low residential zones impossible after a while?

 

[nishiogawkun]

Can someone please tell me at CO how I can get my money back?

 

[timfrombriz]

Can someone please tell me at CO how I can get my money back?

Here

 

[backface]

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?

Totally agree, but they should propose at least partial refunds for a content they sold on a release date and it won't be available until a year after.

Because at this point seems that some people is ok with releasing the game and then fix it afterwards, when a game should be finished at release and then just fix minor bugs.

 

[Azrael_pitau]

I just don't get it. There is so much wrong at the moment that it's impossible to see something positive from the point of view as a customer.

You were talking about toxicity and I do understand that some comments are a No-Go but seeing these kind of posts just made me at first angry and now just dissmisive. Don't get me wrong I was a big fan of CS1 and was really looking forward to CS2...

There is no industry where people are willing to work so many hours for free for a company like in game development. Endless hours of testing, bug reports and feedback. Certain companies do a 2-6 month beta testing phase exactly because of that.
In my opinion you have not listened to your community and still don't. You're talking about minor bugs while the game is full of major bugs and in some cases not playable at all (cities bigger than approx 500k and I'm talking about the high-end PC hardware). Have you actually sat down and played the game?

You say and said a lot of things to gain customers and keep others happy like "best city building simulation" and a bunch of times like "coming soon" either with patches to fix major bugs or the whole topic regarding modding. Guess what happens when you don't deliver? Customers feel lied to and apparently that's still the case.

CS1 has/had a great community with lots and lots of really good feedback, bug reports and fantastic ideas. While you probably lost a bunch of them, there are still some out there and I really wonder why you don't start to acknowledge and use their feedback.

I'm really disappointed because I was really looking forward to CS2 and wanted to like the game.

 

[cestes]

I've been disappointed, yet hopeful. I really believed CO would change course and realize the decisions and actions they've taken so far have not been working.

I read the WotW yesterday and for the first time since CS2 was released, just felt apathetic.

I reread it this morning to see if that feeling had changed, but it hasn't. There seems to be a bunker-like mindset at CO that has led us to the current state of the game. It's not a simple, "Oops, we made one bad choice or mistake!" Rather, it's a systemic problem that has, in my opinion, based on all the information CO has shared with us existed from the inception of CS2. For instance, Mariina saying there was not time to incorporate some of the QOL features from the original into the sequel was such a huge red flag.

There are a lot of words coming from CO, but they're not really saying much. It would be nice if someone from CO would start answering some of the tougher questions and start giving us some honest transparency. And Paradox, I know you're just the publisher, but where are you in all this? Anyhow, this is all wishful thinking. If they were going to do any of this, they would have started by now.

Short of something bold and dramatic, like working with Steam to refund those who want it, partial refunds and moving the game into early access, announcing a leadership change, expanding the team, or halting console development indefinitely I just don't think there's much hope left.

 

[BoraBora]

Steam Refund submitted.

Will you keep us updated if this works? I only played 10.7 hours last year before giving up and we too in Europe have strong consumer protection laws.

 

[timfrombriz]

Will you keep us updated if this works? I only played 10.7 hours last year before giving up and we too in Europe have strong consumer protection laws.

Will do.

 

[unmerged(524934)]

Thirteen pages of comments on this latest WotW, hundreds of questions, and just two responses with six answers from Colossal Order, the last of which was about 20 hours ago - I mean, come on guys, this is not how this is supposed to work, surely? @co_martsu, @co_avanya - are you going to address any of the more difficult questions people have raised here? I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that as a paying customer I would like to hear from you a bit more

 

[Lys91]

Ah great. So previously, the problem was toxic players with high expectations. This week we are trying to shift a bit of the blame onto PDX. The blame shifting to everyone but CO is so transparent that it is ridiculous.

I posted in another thread but it got deleted because I quoted a post that got deleted. I will say it here again.

Given what is happening, here is my theory of what goes on behind the scene. CO is a small company. They have very few software developers. Some software developers were the only ones who understood how some parts of their code base worked (e.g., Bob was the only guy who understood the import/export code). If you have a good manager, you don't let this happen, and if it does, you make sure you don't lose them. Some of those people left the company at some point. I guess it started to happen when the game was delayed in 2020. They have lost some more key people since release, which would also be my guess. Given the team's small size, it does not take many people to leave for things to go very wrong. That would IMHO explain perfectly what is going on right now, and why they seem to be unable to fix anything.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Shouldn’t the most logical step for CO right now would be to postpone the console release until the PC version is stable, and bringing the developers working onto into bug fixing, performance improvements and modding support? Even if they somehow make the performance just barely pass the minimum to make it to consoles, releasing it now would mean the game will still have a ton of bugs and an incredibly bad reputation to bear, which will further damage the company’s reputation.

Am I missing something here?

 

[timfrombriz]

Thirteen pages of comments on this latest WotW, hundreds of questions, and just two responses with six answers from Colossal Order, the last of which was about 20 hours ago - I mean, come on guys, this is not how this is supposed to work, surely? @co_martsu, @co_avanya - are you going to address any of the more difficult questions people have raised here? I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that as a paying customer I would like to hear from you a bit more

I think Colossal Order have riden a wave of success from CS1 and their unable to comprehend that sucesss is not a given for CS2. I think their living in a bubble and have convinced themselves everythings fine and things will smooth out, and this is just a temporary annoyance with the community being 'toxic'.

I think they have also confused the relationship with players. The condescending tone towards players in WotW's, the repeated lies about coming soon, were working hard, the threats of going silent, and now for the last month, the almost non existance of communication and engagement with players.

Yet they bend at the knees for Paradox, having meetings and planning with them the future of the game, console release #1, that's whats needed most.

I think in 12 months a realization will hit home, when the paid DLC's arent getting anywhere near the sales targets that they expected, because people walked away. Then they will have an awakening that the customers are the ones they should of been bending at the knees for (aka. listening and engaging, and drafting the direction and being completely transparent). We are the ones paying the bills, not Paradox.