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CO Word of the Week #15

Let’s discuss the status of the modding support today. The Editor has been in the works and we have shared versions of it with a closed group of a few selected modders for feedback. We are very fortunate to have this dedicated group of people eager to try experimental solutions and voice their opinions on them. Their feedback helps us understand how tools are used and how we can improve them. We have been surprised by the modders so many times in Cities in Motion and Cities: Skylines that we have stopped trying to guess what you might want to do or achieve. It’s much more helpful for us to just ask directly how to support those efforts instead.

Collaboration with the closed group has been going on behind the scenes for months now. Together, we have put a lot of effort towards the beta version of the modding tools, and we really can’t wait to share them with you! We believe modding is a pivotal part of the experience with a Cities: Skylines game and we want to encourage everyone to be as creative as possible.

As we’re preparing for the public release with support for Code Modding and the Map Editor, Paradox is running a broader Early Access for modders and creators chosen from the sign-up earlier this year. This gives creators the early opportunity to give the team direct feedback on using Paradox Mods, the new Modding Toolchain, and the Map Editor. We’re looking forward to seeing their feedback, and having the first Code Mods, Maps, and Savegames uploaded to the platform and ready for you on its release! This is all to support the quest of making sure we have a robust start when the tools are released, and this is a good opportunity to test Paradox Mods as well. We’ll be sharing more information on each part: Paradox Mods, Code Modding, and Map Editing later on so you’ll know what to expect.

I would like to emphasize again that there is still a lot of work still to be done: Asset editing is not in a shape or form to be used as-is. We’ll still need more time to make importing the assets work. The Region Packs teased at the end of last year are bundles of assets of varying sizes and content made by some of your favorite creators from the community. These assets rely on us finalizing the asset editor to a point where we are happy that the import pipeline and saving will be in a future-proof state. This is an ongoing effort, alongside improving the Code Modding and Map Editing based on the feedback we’ll receive from the Early Access and eventually from all of you. We have dedicated devs working on the modding support, eager to tackle bugs and implement improvements, so we’ll keep patching the tools throughout the public Beta phase until we have Modding 1.0 available. Naturally, the work will continue even past that as we receive more feedback and suggestions from you.

The creators and modders of Cities: Skylines brought so much cool and innovative content to the game, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with for Cities: Skylines II. There are already some exciting mods and beautiful maps out there (yes, we see you!) and it will be very exciting to see what you create with the added support!

Sincerely,
Mariina
 
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Serious question: Why don't you just patch those asset packs in the basegame like you did with CS1 and probably the upcoming CS2 DLC? No need to wait for the asset editor.

Everybody will want these packs anyway so it makes sense to just enhance the game with those assets and make the basegame better.

I gives people finally something new play with, content creators something new to make content for.
 
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Use the dev mode to reset the land value. It allows you to continue building. Rinse and repeat.

It’s weird to me that CO has not issued more guidance on this topic given how game stalling it is.
Mmh I will look into this. And I agree, I don't understand the lack of communication/bug fix in regards to this either, considering the magnitude of it.
 
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The game is unplayable for most, as we can't edit roads after running the simulation. If we do, it crashes to desktop.
I'm tempted to contact Steam, and get a refund for this game. Disappointed is the politest way to describe how I feel about CO.
 
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I think this would've worked earlier but at this point I think if they did this, people would just flood the forums with messages like "Don't give us meaningless technical details, WHERE IS THE MODDING SUPPORT/LAND VALUE FIX??"
I'm inclined to agree. We need some tangible progress now. The land value issue has been there since day 1 and ruins the gameplay.

A simple example of their lack of progress. The rest of the game is of course.plagued with issues
 
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"We have something cooking!" you said last week. "Next week we will be able to give you the latest on where we are with modding, so please tune in then."

Exclamation marks in English are used for emphasis, to indicate excitement or strong feelings. "We have something cooking!" reads very differently to "We have something cooking." The latter is a simple statement of fact. The former is an enticement that implies something major will be revealed.

Instead, Paradox Mods and the map editor have merely gone from closed alpha to closed beta. Is anything still on track for release before the end of March?

You'll have to forgive my lack of enthusiasm.
 
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Look, I still enjoy playing the game, but its pretty exhausting to have a WoW without really good news again.
Would have prefered radio silence over this kind of situation to be honest. I know, you do what you can and you currently dont have much to work with, but for that radio silence would have been better. Keeps you focussed on the task at hand and saves us a sigh.
 
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Serious question: Why don't you just patch those asset packs in the basegame like you did with CS1 and probably the upcoming CS2 DLC? No need to wait for the asset editor.

Everybody will want these packs anyway so it makes sense to just enhance the game with those assets and make the basegame better.

I gives people finally something new play with, content creators something new to make content for.
My two guesses:
  • They hoped content creators would be able to import them themselves with the (broken) editor. Now they can't, and CO don't have the time to do it themselves because of the mess they made.
  • CO knows that those asset packs will be an additional hit towards performance. If they bake them into the game, they have to change requirements, or be ok with less performance. If they are released in the workshop, they can say: the requirements are for the base game. Adding additional (asset) mods will always result in less performance.
  • A combination of both.
 
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just asking becasue many recent crashes came from people adding invisible paths to growables or placing extra vehicles for decoration. those crashes on vanilla games when unpausing seems to come from the fact that too much was altered while the simulation is paused and once its unpaused, it overloads certain systems.

So try not to build big grids and zone a hundred buildings on it while paused. AFAIK, this has been an issue since last patch and unfortunately, it happens to some players who just pause the game to fix an interchange, which isnt too big of a change in my opinion that it should crash the game.
I had a similar problem... in certain saves the game would crash as soon as I clicked "unpause" to any speed--but I'm playing (almost) totally vanilla (no mods not using developer mode) on a custom map (Kexford(?), Temperate).

I have a impulse to save frequently. I started wondering if maybe my files were corrupting because I was saving so often. Multiple overwrites of the same save game seems to have been the source of the problem (not saying that is what others may be experiencing, though). The game stopped crashing when I started saving additional saves with a unique new name. (Mar10a, Mar10b, Mar10c, etc.) My game hasn't crashed since I changed my game save naming protocol.

p.s. I also have autosave set to every ten minutes up to 100 saves--but I still save manually when I reach a stopping point or before I add something to my build that I'm concerned might turn out differently than I intend.
 
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Wasn't this WoW supposed to be about art from the art team?
No. The blurb on CO's Facebook page said, "Next week we will be able to give you the latest on where we are with modding, so please tune in then. As for now, the art team is working full speed, so the word from them is coming a bit later."
 
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I’m usually very positive as I truly believe this game will be miles above CS1 but only after modding and custom assets are made available.

But this kind of update… what’s the point?! At least give a target month or a quarter.

Ah.. and in the mean time so so many things to fix…
 
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Respectfully I think a lot of us would be much happier to be more patient if I hadn't spent $80 for the privilege to do so and hadn't been refused refunds when we weren't told about any of the significant modding delays until after release when the refund window had already passed. None of that was in the marketing.

I think I know how you’re feeling. Unfortunately modding was not marketed as being included with the base game but a feature that would be coming soon. Yes, they misled consumers but the definition of “soon” is in the eyes of the reader. Never allow yourself to trust “soon.” What is very real, however, are expansion pass content that have very real dates and delayed dates. I’m sure they’ve consulted legal about how long they could delay without issuing refunds.

Which begs the question: are they planning to incorporate or build the CCPs into the base game in order to make the Q2 release target? The asset editor doesn’t have a publicly shared date.


Mmh I will look into this. And I agree, I don't understand the lack of communication/bug fix in regards to this either, considering the magnitude of it.

Dev Mode -> Simulation -> scroll down -> Economy -> Reset Land Value
 
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No. The blurb on CO's Facebook page said, "Next week we will be able to give you the latest on where we are with modding, so please tune in then. As for now, the art team is working full speed, so the word from them is coming a bit later."

We’ll be back next week with something different: words from the art team!

And from Avanya last week in the same thread:
Sadly, the post from the art team we had planned for yesterday had to be pushed until next week. Sorry for the lack of communication on here!

It's unfortunate that these updates don't get shared on the forums.
 
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Let’s discuss the status of the modding support today. The Editor has been in the works and we have shared versions of it with a closed group of a few selected modders for feedback. We are very fortunate to have this dedicated group of people eager to try experimental solutions and voice their opinions on them. Their feedback helps us understand how tools are used and how we can improve them. We have been surprised by the modders so many times in Cities in Motion and Cities: Skylines that we have stopped trying to guess what you might want to do or achieve. It’s much more helpful for us to just ask directly how to support those efforts instead.

Collaboration with the closed group has been going on behind the scenes for months now. Together, we have put a lot of effort towards the beta version of the modding tools, and we really can’t wait to share them with you! We believe modding is a pivotal part of the experience with a Cities: Skylines game and we want to encourage everyone to be as creative as possible.

As we’re preparing for the public release with support for Code Modding and the Map Editor, Paradox is running a broader Early Access for modders and creators chosen from the sign-up earlier this year. This gives creators the early opportunity to give the team direct feedback on using Paradox Mods, the new Modding Toolchain, and the Map Editor. We’re looking forward to seeing their feedback, and having the first Code Mods, Maps, and Savegames uploaded to the platform and ready for you on its release! This is all to support the quest of making sure we have a robust start when the tools are released, and this is a good opportunity to test Paradox Mods as well. We’ll be sharing more information on each part: Paradox Mods, Code Modding, and Map Editing later on so you’ll know what to expect.

I would like to emphasize again that there is still a lot of work still to be done: Asset editing is not in a shape or form to be used as-is. We’ll still need more time to make importing the assets work. The Region Packs teased at the end of last year are bundles of assets of varying sizes and content made by some of your favorite creators from the community. These assets rely on us finalizing the asset editor to a point where we are happy that the import pipeline and saving will be in a future-proof state. This is an ongoing effort, alongside improving the Code Modding and Map Editing based on the feedback we’ll receive from the Early Access and eventually from all of you. We have dedicated devs working on the modding support, eager to tackle bugs and implement improvements, so we’ll keep patching the tools throughout the public Beta phase until we have Modding 1.0 available. Naturally, the work will continue even past that as we receive more feedback and suggestions from you.

The creators and modders of Cities: Skylines brought so much cool and innovative content to the game, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with for Cities: Skylines II. There are already some exciting mods and beautiful maps out there (yes, we see you!) and it will be very exciting to see what you create with the added support!

Sincerely,
Mariina
Just close the shop and go to vacations.....
 
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So the big news that we waited an extra week to hear was.........................................?
 
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After last week's "we are cooking something for you" which in terms of time could have made sense with the modding availability expiration date for the end of March I had a fair amount of enthusiasm...instead for the umpteenth time I feel cheated and very disappointed, I paid for a full pass to have after several months a broken game, full of gross defects that I practically never play... you managed to crumble a saga that could have lasted for decades, I don't know how anyone could lose success and credibility in this way
 
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You were doing marginally better with these WotWs, but this has taken all of the remaining wind out of the sails. You asked the community to wait for a week on pins and needles with the strong implication of an announcement of something concrete, but then provide more vague details and non-committals. This is yet another great example of CO's truly terrible communication, failure of management, and it's disrespectful to people who have been waiting for what you advertised to us.

Enough is enough!

Authorize refunds on storefronts. Do it yesterday. You are no longer entitled to my purchase.
 
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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.
 
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lmao, why was this game released.

Please just give me my money back
 
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