Maybe they're busy working on the newest "Crickets and Tumbleweeds" DLC?
Best regards,
sys
Best regards,
sys
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They're busy helping out on the 22nd DLC for EUIV, of course.
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Huh, never thought "Ignore everything until it goes away" would be a valid business strategy. Guess actual answers is too much to expect. Leaves me thinking maybe that one poor customer service example was right in saying "Maybe the game isn't for [you]".
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do you guys think its possible they were just testing the waters, how people would react to giving away the dlc for free?
if it really was a troll they would have clarified that by now im pretty sure.
if it really was a troll they would have clarified that by now im pretty sure.
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I guess it's possible, though it feels over complicated since if management has already signed off on the plan they don't need to do that, and if management isn't going to agree with the plan than it's a very risky strategy to put the idea out there at all. Like, this only really flies if Paradox is on the fence about doing it and someone thinks a leak would show that doing it would come with a bunch of goodwill.
People have speculated on a few different scenarios, and these are the ones I think are more likely:
- The original is a hoax posted by someone on the announcements forum (which has been verified as doable). Maybe they created an account and gave it a name very close to the official one (using special characters and such so its not a true duplicate), or maybe they hacked the account, or some other thing.
- The main issue with this theory is that it's going on four days without a denial, when "that was a hoax due to the forum permissions" is a really easy denial. Unless they've completely abandoned this forum or gone radio silent in general it doesn't really make sense to just leave this out there.
- The other possible reason for a hoax is if it was posted by someone who has legit access to the account but had malicious intent for some reason. I have absolutely no evidence to support this claim, but if it was effectively someone in the company misbehaving, they may not want to say anything until after it's dealt with internally because that means HR and lawyers are involved.
- The original was legitimate and was posted too early, either because someone was supposed to schedule a post and hit the wrong button, or because someone was told to post it by accident and then was told to delete it immediately afterward when the mistake was realized.
- This explains the lack of a denial: if this is the actual plan, they wouldn't look very good denying it one day only to announce it the next.
- This doesn't really explain why the draft was posted four days ago and then there's been nothing since, unless the draft was REALLY early and they didn't have all their ducks in a row yet. Organizing refunds with multiple stores for multiple editions of the game is complicated so I would definitely get if its just taking a while to sort, but it would be odd for someone to even come to the forum with that announcement if that stuff isn't figured out. Could just be an honest mistake in that case.
Ultimately we don't really know whats going on until someone clarifies officially. I will say that it's strange for this to have gone on this long without any kind of response, and I can only guess as to what that means. (With how the beach DLC was reviewed on Steam, you have to imagine morale took a hit, as it's pretty tough for people to work on something only to see that outcome.
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Indeed, this whole situation is just bizarre and confusing. I do not understand why it remains unaddressed officially
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This is like a textbook example of poor communication and bad public relations. The community manager would rather leave the community festering rumours than post a clarifying message. It's even quite rare across the industry.
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A lot of people seem to overthink this waaaay to much.
Here is the edited, most logical and simplest explaination for you:
All of this happened within a context of CO/Paradox already not using this forum since 2 weeks after the worst public backlash they had to face since the release of the game. They stopped communication with this forum way before this hoax.
We haven't see the community manager since then, not once (I saw some people joking about what could she be doing all day... and imho they were right to ask themselve this question, even in the form of a joke).
And way before that, we already had good reasons to believe they didn't read these forums at all, except sometimes only for a little part of WOTWs replies and nothing more.
Likely they just don't care about what happens here (and on reddit). They're probably just busy with internal work on:
- building a strategy to come back with good news after the DLC debacle
- debugging and finishing the mod platform and the editor
- preparing console version and next DLCs
- maybe a couple of (probably small and insufficient) bugfixes to boost the next DLC in a few months
Sorry guys but I think any theory other than this is just way too far-fetched.
EDIT: And to anyone thinking "Still, they couldn't abandon their own forums like that", I'm sorry but:
Here is the edited, most logical and simplest explaination for you:
All of this happened within a context of CO/Paradox already not using this forum since 2 weeks after the worst public backlash they had to face since the release of the game. They stopped communication with this forum way before this hoax.
We haven't see the community manager since then, not once (I saw some people joking about what could she be doing all day... and imho they were right to ask themselve this question, even in the form of a joke).
And way before that, we already had good reasons to believe they didn't read these forums at all, except sometimes only for a little part of WOTWs replies and nothing more.
Likely they just don't care about what happens here (and on reddit). They're probably just busy with internal work on:
- building a strategy to come back with good news after the DLC debacle
- debugging and finishing the mod platform and the editor
- preparing console version and next DLCs
- maybe a couple of (probably small and insufficient) bugfixes to boost the next DLC in a few months
Sorry guys but I think any theory other than this is just way too far-fetched.
EDIT: And to anyone thinking "Still, they couldn't abandon their own forums like that", I'm sorry but:
- As I just said they already did since more than 2 weeks now.
- Even before the last two weeks, I don't remember any response from CO outside of "official annoucement" threads.
- If I remember correctly, I even saw this justified as a principle on multiple occasions, like "these forums are for you players to communicate with each other".
- Even the reported bugs/issues and suggestions were left without any reply from CO since months.
- Remember that we are toxic. Sarcasm away, CO consider us to be too negative. So why bother arguing with negative people when there's a lot of concrete work to do? Actions speaks louder than words, etc.
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Let's be fair though.
I am pretty sure they have completely exhausted their pool of capabilities with this game.
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If more than 90% think it is a bad DLC, the reason is not tied to a "toxic" forum; the product is the problem. There is simply no room for an excuse anymore.
The next DLC also talks about 100 new buildings and the price is probably the same.
-> With an expected rating of 5% or 10%, how many DLCs can PDX/CO sell?
Not many, that's for sure, and that is true for all future DLCs. CO does not have a great reputation anymore and a "smallest as possible" DLC with the highest possible price to bring in revenue is not a feasible option.
The "best possible" DLC with a reasonable price may grant only an okay rating because the base game is not that great.
I am not sure, but if a base game sits at 55%, a DLC is very unlikely better rated than maybe 75%, even if it is an awesome DLC full of cool stuff. This impacts sales.
If CO/PDX really wants to save the series, the only option is to fix the base game and not charge for DLC until players start to rate it better. That is not easy because who buys a game with only a 55% rating on Steam? It looks like a waste of money.
CO needs a good press and happy people. Refunding this DLC is a good start and that is why I think it is still possible that is not a hoax.
The only problem is that CO probably gets paid by reaching milestones. CO has already most likely received the money for launching CS2. Future revenue comes in via successful DLCs. If PDX did it right, the contract has a clause: A product rated under 20% or a different low value does not count towards a milestone, so CO does not get any money.
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They have to charge for the DLC or they would have to compensate the Ultimate Edition buyers by offering them some exclusive free content. When would they do that? The UE content has already been postponed twice. So 2025? 2026? No way.
It's an obvious hoax. They can't refund the UE buyers and not the base game buyers, anyway, and they made perfectly clear they won't refund anyone.
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It's an obvious hoax, and we've all pretty much figured that by now.
But damn it, if that was someone where I work, someone in marketing not doing their community engagement to clarify things, and the boss lady in marketing not issuing a clear directive and messaging immediately, the board would absolutely eat them alive for not engaging everyone with a note to clarify.
But damn it, if that was someone where I work, someone in marketing not doing their community engagement to clarify things, and the boss lady in marketing not issuing a clear directive and messaging immediately, the board would absolutely eat them alive for not engaging everyone with a note to clarify.
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There's no good news they can give you. So why would they want to enrage the masses further which any statement of them inevitably will do? You might not like it but the smart thing to do for them is to not say anything and let the storm pass.
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If there isn't anything good to say, there will be nobody left after the storm has passed.
But there would be plenty of things to say. For instance explaining some of the inner working of the game, to give people a chance to deal with certain situations.
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Adressing it publically would lead to the pretty weird situation of them having to state "So, we realized every single one of you thinks a refund would be in order, but we won't be doing that lol".
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The problem with the inner working of the game is that it's not really working too great, is it. Unless they can announce console version, mod support, bugfixes ready - just anything they can point to to hopefully reassure the community by "communicating" CO can only lose.
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"It was a hoax and we're going to fix the forum permissions so it can't happen again."
That's it. That's the entirety of what needs to be said. Then there's no speculation, this thread dies, the issue that allowed the hoax to happen gets resolved, and things move on. Nobody even remotely rational is going to get enraged by a probable hoax being confirmed as a hoax. That's already the opinion of a lot of folks as to what happened.
This is a one-sentence fix, and we're somehow on day 5 without it. It paints a worrying picture.
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So basically, I can post a thread in official announcements, add links to harvest data or spread malware/virus, add lots of false information, make it look official because its from an official section of the forum, knowing it goes to everyone who subbed to that section as having or interest in CS2, who expect only official notifications, therefore abusing the system... and I still can today.
Sure the post will be deleted, but the email will go out. A "please don't" will stop me from doing so, but it won't stop a nefarious user.
I'm flabbergasted having proved this is the case by creating a post earlier in the week, that this loop-hole is still wide open to abuse and nobody has officially addressed anything, closed / locked this thread, said its not official or even fixed the forum privilages (it was down for maintenance yesterday) or anything.
Things move very slowly in the world of Paradox, it seems.
This should have been solved monday at the latest and this thread locked with - it was not from an official source.
Unless it really was a mistake from PDX and will come to fruition.
Lets be honest, we can all guess and assume (wording helps with that), but nobody here knows 100% for sure, it is/was a hoax, still, because the silence is deafening.
The wording and situation makes me think hoax!
This thread and its continued existence, makes me think.. maybe not?
Sure the post will be deleted, but the email will go out. A "please don't" will stop me from doing so, but it won't stop a nefarious user.
I'm flabbergasted having proved this is the case by creating a post earlier in the week, that this loop-hole is still wide open to abuse and nobody has officially addressed anything, closed / locked this thread, said its not official or even fixed the forum privilages (it was down for maintenance yesterday) or anything.
Things move very slowly in the world of Paradox, it seems.
This should have been solved monday at the latest and this thread locked with - it was not from an official source.
Unless it really was a mistake from PDX and will come to fruition.
Lets be honest, we can all guess and assume (wording helps with that), but nobody here knows 100% for sure, it is/was a hoax, still, because the silence is deafening.
The wording and situation makes me think hoax!
This thread and its continued existence, makes me think.. maybe not?
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