Beach properties assets are all gone and my city is screwed. Thanks a lot.

[Darren3331]

My key learning from Cities Skylines 2 is never pre-order the Ultimate edition, no matter how much I enjoy the genre of game or its predecessor. The 'value' of the Ultimate edition is on a decline, given the substitutes they're offering to replace the DLC and the ongoing delays.

Its not a substitute, its extra stuff..anyway moot point, it was cheap as far as I'm concerned. I have already got my monies worth even if they closed down and never released the rest of what is part of this pack. Not many things can give you 600 hours and counting, of fun for that price.

 

[DerMordret]

Personally, I would get this done before Manor Lords starts on Friday

 

[brother_korahael]

Personally, I would get this done before Manor Lords starts on Friday

Tbf I think a large portion of us will be playing Manor Lords for a little while, at least. I've been playing Ostriv while waiting for this patch before I accidentally break any of the cities I've created with the BP assets, and even then, I'm not rushing to play the game.

 

[tweety80]

Manor Lords

Manor Lords is not a city builder, but it is still part of the genre. I agree, a lot of people will try it out. I mean, a single developer did a great job. CO is huge against that developer.

Taking away the already bought assets before including them is for sure not a nice move. If someone bought the DLC -> these people are the last hardcore CS2 fans.

 

[yalex]

Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is well worth exploring as well. Not a direct clone of CS/Simcity but has some really interesting concepts.

 

[avguy2]

Is it inconvent? Yes. Should it have been avoided? Absolutely. But don't make it a bigger deal than it is. I mean, are more than ten people even still playing CS:2? In the grand scheme of things some missing assets seems like the least problem this game has.

 

[misterchalm]

I still have all the assets in game but perhaps that's because of Ultimate? The whole thing is strange.

Yes it's ultimate. I still have them too

 

[misterchalm]

If you can dream it, you can (sort of) build it ...

I dreamed of grey boxes and skyrocketing rent, just last night!!

 

[misterchalm]

Its not a substitute, its extra stuff..anyway moot point, it was cheap as far as I'm concerned. I have already got my monies worth even if they closed down and never released the rest of what is part of this pack. Not many things can give you 600 hours and counting, of fun for that price.

100% agreed. Not the best money and time I've spent, but far from the worst. Moving on though.

 

[boorkie]

Personally, I would get this done before Manor Lords starts on Friday

not to mention Urbek Trains DLC comes out tomorrow

 

[gizzamaluke]

They pretty much have until Manor Lords releases to get this figured out.

Spoiler

two days until the CS2 player base plummets (more than it already has)

 

[gizzamaluke]

...not to mention testing what will happen.

How would you test what will happen when content is removed from the store without removing content from the store?

 

[maarten_714]

Hi all!

I just wanted to pop in and let you know we're looking into what's happened as you were of course supposed to keep access to the Beach Properties content until the patch that moves it to the base game arrived. Assets are replaced by the placeholder boxes, but as the waterfront zoning isn't available in the base game yet, I recommend holding off on loading saves with a lot of those zones.

At this time we don't have an ETA for when this is resolved, but at the very least the upcoming patch (date still to be announced) will resolve it as the assets become part of the base game. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience this is causing!

Let's be clear here:

What you should have done:

Patch the game first so it has the new content included first, then start issuing refunds. This way success is pretty much guaranteed.

As mistakes are human, this is what you should have done to fix the mistake:

Stop all work, get the devs together, come up with a plan (this should have really happened over the weekend, but I respect the weekend, so on Monday morning....), and release an immediate emergency hotfix that just enables the new content. Doesn't have to include ANY of the new patch content you are working on, just an interim hotfix that included the Beach Properties content into the base game, and that's it. Mods shouldn't break because nothing else is patched, and everyone would be happy, and respect that mistakes are simply human.

What you are actually doing:

Oh, sorry we messed up again. Meh, we're just going to pretend nothing happened, we don't know if we will fix it before the next patch, and since it will be fixed with the next patch so.....just stop loading your games for now.

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I still believe in Colossal Order and I will continue to play CS2. (I have Ultimate, so ultimately I am unaffected) But this is starting to become a bit of a comedy now..... Another reason why you should have fixed it REALLY quick with an emergency hotfix to be released not any later than say Wednesday (I take it you would need at least one day to compile the hotfix) is that the first YouTube videos basically laughing at CO/Paradox for just outright removing the content from thousands of players without offering an immediate fix.....have already been posted, and the LAST thing this game needs is for game sites to pick up on this again and release articles with more bad press.

This is one of those things you shouldn't just shrug at, this should have been a "stop all work, everyone work on the hotfix, release it, and then go back to developing the next patch" kind of thing.

It may delay work on the next patch for a few days or a week, it may mean the staff has to put in some extra overtime this week, but as someone who has worked in IT for nearly 30 years..... that is the price you pay for making mistakes. Because God knows I have made my own share of mistakes in my career, and I have paid for them by fixing it in long long night hours, in one or two cases literally working till 7am in the morning and seeing the first people walk back into the office for the next work day.....just to make sure THEIR work day started off with no issues whatsoever..... and I could go home for some sleep!

That is the price we pay for making mistakes. And while I realize you are all likely already putting in long, long overtime hours to fix the game, this is what should have happened to ensure the Beach Properties content is patched in.

If that is too much of an ask, you should just re-release the content on Steam as a purchasable DLC for the price: "free", so users can get it themselves.

 

[maarten_714]

How would you test what will happen when content is removed from the store without removing content from the store?

CO Manager #2: You there, CO employee #14 and #18. Here is the company credit card. Go purchase Cities Skylines 2 on a brand new steam account, add the Beach Properties Content, and download and install the game. Make a quick basic city using as much as the Beach Properties content you possibly can. Report back to me when you are done.

(2 hours later)

CO Employee #14: done, got me a small city!
CO Employee #18: done, and I have a beautiful city too!

CO Manager #2: Great, we're now going to issue you a refund for Beach Properties. Please let us know what happens.

CO Employee #14: All my beach buildings are white blocks!
CO Employee #18: Same here, my beautiful city is ruined!
(CO Employee #13 from somewhere in the back: Did you keep the palm trees?)
CO Employee #14: NO, shut up #13!

CO Manager #2: Thanks for testing guys.....go back to what you were doing. Much appreciated!

CO Manager #2: Hey, CO Developers #7, 11, 19 and 21, let's have a quick huddle, we need to come up with a fix before we do the refunds for everyone else.....

Something like that, maybe?

 

[maarten_714]

No doubt the there there was a change management procedure prepared in advance that was reviewed by all stakeholders. But this was such an edge case, removing assets resulting in the unavailability of said assets in game, that this interruption simply couldn't have been for foreseen.

From what I understand, this ONLY HAPPENED to people who had gotten the refund, not with people who have not YET gotten the refund. (I assume that by now, they have stopped issuing additional refunds. Since they said this was to be a manual task, and some staff likely worked at it over the weekend from home, they actually could have tested it by issuing some refunds to steam test accounts they must have. I mean sure, all the staff probably got Ultimate as a company present on launch day, but they surely could have tested it. See scenario I posted above.

 

[LordTridus]

Couldn’t they just republish the DLC for free and that would reactivate the entitlement without needing a patch?

Not without Steam re-adding it back to accounts from which it was already refunded, which is something Valve is highly unlikely to put the effort into doing when it's just going away anyway.

 

[gizzamaluke]

CO Manager #2: You there, CO employee #14 and #18. Here is the company credit card. Go purchase Cities Skylines 2 on a brand new steam account, add the Beach Properties Content, and download and install the game. Make a quick basic city using as much as the Beach Properties content you possibly can. Report back to me when you are done.

(2 hours later)

CO Employee #14: done, got me a small city!
CO Employee #18: done, and I have a beautiful city too!

CO Manager #2: Great, we're now going to issue you a refund for Beach Properties. Please let us know what happens.

CO Employee #14: All my beach buildings are white blocks!
CO Employee #18: Same here, my beautiful city is ruined!
(CO Employee #13 from somewhere in the back: Did you keep the palm trees?)
CO Employee #14: NO, shut up #13!

CO Manager #2: Thanks for testing guys.....go back to what you were doing. Much appreciated!

CO Manager #2: Hey, CO Developers #7, 11, 19 and 21, let's have a quick huddle, we need to come up with a fix before we do the refunds for everyone else.....

Something like that, maybe?

This scenario doesn't outline a controlled experiment because the variables aren't the same. And neither is the intended result: CO didn't just give a refund as described in your scenario; they completely removed it from Steam.

 

[maarten_714]

This scenario doesn't outline a controlled experiment because the variables aren't the same. And neither is the intended result: CO didn't just give a refund as described in your scenario; they completely removed it from Steam.

The content still exists on Steam, anyone with Ultimate can continue playing or re-install fresh, or buy Ultimate now and install. The content is there, it only exists one time.... it is just flagged as enabled for download. But yeah... CO set a flag somewhere saying this content should no longer be available because it is now refunded to everyone, and in the process it was removed for a bunch of people. I realize part of the problem may be on the Steam side, but also on the CO side for not understanding how it works when you refund a DLC.

How, what, why, when, how? I don't know, I am not a steam back-end tech expert, and likely, neither are you. But I do know that Steam has big refund system built in the client. You can buy any game or DLC, and if the play time is less than 2 hours and you own it less than 14 days, you too can get a refund. But in the process of doing so, the game is removed from your computer by the client when it can. This refund system, even though this refund is well past the 14 days/2hours thing from Steam, has kicked in and removed the items refunded from the client that received a refund.

At the same time, they indeed did not make it available for purchase any longer, so a refund is indeed removal. I can see that people don't anticipate this, so I certainly and completely understand. It is the kind of mistake I would make in such a scenario, I too am only human. But because we are human, we also develop failsafe measures to prevent us from making such mistakes.... and in almost all tech related issues where a big decision needs to be made: Test it, before you put it in production.

All I am saying is that there is a rather easy test before you start issuing refunds to everyone, and that is to issue a refund to just one or two accounts...... just to make sure nothing funky happens when you do that. That way they don't have to understand the steam behind the scene refund tech mambo jambo, because you just tested as a user just to see what happens if you click this here button that says refund.

This could have, and should have been tested.

 

[LordTridus]

How would you test what will happen when content is removed from the store without removing content from the store?

Steam has test accounts for testing this stuff, because companies do have to test adding/removing DLC. Valve can be slow to work with, though, and if you want to stop selling something after the announcement maybe something just didn't work out correctly in the testing.

 

[LordTridus]

For the folks upset about this... The whole thing is likely an entitlements issue on the backend: Steam marks what packages you're entitled to based on which ones you own, and thats how the game knows what to load. Ultimate isn't impacted because Ultimate isn't getting a refund, so the entitlement would still be there. Folks who bought the DLC directly had it removed, no longer have the entitlement (because that's how Steam's refund process works), and thus the game now thinks they aren't entitled to it. The game then sees those buildings there, has no entitled art for them, and so uses a placeholder instead.

They'll need to patch that so that it correctly recognizes those buildings don't need an entitlement anymore and also may need to actually patch them into the base game if they shipped in a seperate DLC package (rather than always being there and just disabled, I don't know how they did it internally).

It's clearly an error, but it's likely just one caused by rushing trying to get this done quickly since you don't want to keep selling something you already announced you're going to stop selling. I know its frustrating when your city gets messed up because of something like this, but ultimately it will get sorted and people should IMO have a bit of a sense of humour about it rather than whipping up the outrage machine.