Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

EMail From CO/Paradox Regarding Beach Assets

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Cities: Skylines 2 3483 Cities Skylines 2: User Mods 723 Bug Reports 6811 Suggestions 1651 Official Information & Announcements 121 Analyze and Speculate 183
Status
Not open for further replies.
Show only dev responses
Maybe there is no communication at this time as they reorganize things and are redoing ToDo's an build new structures and teams - who knows...
Maybe soon there will be a new WotW with an announcement, what the have done internally to do a better (communication) job
 
  • 4Haha
Reactions:
_Labs said:
The wording and situation makes me think hoax!
This thread and its continued existence, makes me think.. maybe not?
Click to expand...
This thread and the continued existence of the official forum loophole makes me think "amateur hour", nothing more. PDX grossed 2 billions$ in 2023 and they can't have someone fix that?
 
  • 11Like
Reactions:
I do need to say this: The worst thing any game company can do, is stop communicating with the players and hoping for the best. I have seen a few failed launches in my years of playing games, and we had another last year with Lord of the Rings Online, where the Corsairs of Umbar expansion was rushed, incomplete, because they got some devs poached by another studio and they had a deadline. There was a lot of outrage about instances not being ready (finally released in March 2024) and other game components not being ready, etc...... very very similar to here, where a game that was not ready was released around the same time, and the greatest missing feature (mods) was released in March.

But the BIG difference between those two, shall we say failed, botched releases..... is that regardless of the toxic onslaught on the forums from players, the crew kept communicating, and kept people up to date, and still do..... Whereas the devs from CO have gone rather quiet.

That is one of the most important things a game company can do however: Go to the forums of their game, interact with people, and answer questions. You don't have to engage the people being toxic, and that isn't helpful anyways..... but many people have questions about things, and they deserve answers. Now, at the makers of LOTRO, (SSG) the devs have a fair amount of autonomy over their projects, so they can discuss them and don't have to ask permission from management. There are of course things they cannot say because they are in development and they don't want to tip off other game studios, but in the overal scheme of things..... they can answer questions. They also do a weekly live stream where they play the game and people can join on Twitch and Youtube and ask questions.

CO seems to have retracted into their shell, and doing none of the communications they did with CS1. The "word of the week/month" are carefully polished newsletters, usually revealing little information that wasn't already known. Carefully, diplomatically crafted letters that lack some personality and keeps the players at a distance.

I think the players actually deserve a little more engagement at this point...... just talk about what you are doing, and answer questions on the forum. Even if each dev only spends 1 hour a week on the forums to engage to public, that 1 hour of potential development time is a golden hour worth so much more than the game code that could be written in the same time.

Silence, in this case, is absolutely not golden.
 
  • 11Like
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
More close to home: Vic3 are getting a positive reception for delaying their DLC and patch. There is a strong overlap in "toxic" community between the two subforums. Vic3 had a pretty poor reception and similar upset as CS2. The difference? They eventually (maybe a bit slowly) admitted that there were problems and clearly acknowledged what the problems were. Vic3 is still not great, but at least there is hope.

CS2 seems hopeless, because we cannot get anything beyond vague statement. Nothing seems to work properly. All it would take is a list of TODO.

I am also baffled that no one at PDX is responding to the security issue on the forum. This is pretty bad IMHO.
 
  • 15Like
  • 5
Reactions:
BoraBora said:
This thread and the continued existence of the official forum loophole makes me think "amateur hour", nothing more. PDX grossed 2 billions$ in 2023 and they can't have someone fix that?
Click to expand...
Big greedy companies brag about their record earnings in financial reports without mentioning massive layoffs. That was a huge topic in 2023, and will be this year as well, it already started. And you know who's the first to be yoten out of job? The people responsible for community. The very people who are the front line between players and developers. Essential people for any communication. Gone. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if paradox silently did the same. They can't have someone fix that because they let them go to increase short term profits.

Of course that's a speculation but a probable one.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
maarten_714 said:
regardless of the toxic onslaught on the forums from players, the crew kept communicating, and kept people up to date, and still do..... Whereas the devs from CO have gone rather quiet.

(...) You don't have to engage the people being toxic, and that isn't helpful anyways.....
Click to expand...
You keep repeating how toxic we are and 2 weeks ago you even justified CO's silence by the community's supposed toxicity. So I'll say it again: THIS FORUM IS MODERATED AND TOXICITY ISN'T ALLOWED. Can you link to toxic posts? Is so, why haven't you reported them to the moderation as soon as you read them? If you can't link to toxic posts, why are you insulting people, again and again, by saying they're toxic?
 
  • 13
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
The Aziz said:
And you know who's the first to be yoten out of job? The people responsible for community.
Click to expand...
That is sadly true in many cases. If the current trend of horrible-rated DLCs continues and further drops in the active player base, a large number of paid employees at CO will have to go.
There is no way around it. Paradox will not finance an unprofitable series or brand; they will kill it.
 
  • 5Like
Reactions:
avguy2 said:
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.
Click to expand...

tl;dr: sorry for being too verbose. what I wanted to say is just "let the storm pass = deciding current players are disposable", and THAT is not "smart" at all


I totally agree with the idea that this is probably their current way of thinking. Not at all with the idea that this is the "smart" thing to do.

If, like I believe, they decided to stop communication because we're too negative for them, then "let the storm pass" concretely means nothing more than "wait until the current angry playerbase vanishes into oblivion out of weariness, then rebuild a fresh hype with new players on the long term".


In other words, that's nothing more than (intentional?) scam. Especially if that goes without them fixing core gameplay and perf issues.

Calling that strategy "smart" is okay only if you're after a hit-and-run short-term profit. But if you really plan to "support this game for the next 10 years", then it's just dumb.
This is the internet, so bad press doesn't just disappear. Low usage stats and bad Steam reviews from neglected players will stay, and most likely get worse. So time passing it will become harder and harder to seduce new people.

Sure, this strategy will likely trap a bunch of naive console players (if CO ever manage to get that bloated game to work on these limited architectures)... But then it will be over.


Extrapolating just a bit: if they really have decided stop to communicate with us until we disappear instead of admitting what's wrong and start the consistent work needed to fix it, it means they decided for a pure cash grab, consciously or unconsciously assuming it's okay for them if we (early players) are all fooled.

Their intention is probably not that evil though. They probably really think that a couple of small bugfixes with each DLC will be enough to build a fresh, spending, not disappointed playerbase in like a year or so. But that probably won't.


In conclusion, I hope I'm wrong. But I've come to a point where that hope now feels just like a fantasy.
 
Last edited:
  • 14Like
Reactions:
Abitus said:
tl;dr: sorry for being too verbose. what I wanted to say is just "let the storm pass = deciding current players are disposable", and THAT is not "smart" at all


I totally agree with the idea that this is probably their current way of thinking. Not at all with the idea that this is the "smart" thing to do.

If, like I believe, they decided to stop communication because we're too negative for them, then "let the storm pass" concretely means nothing more than "wait until the current angry playerbase vanishes into oblivion out of weariness, then rebuild a fresh hype with new players on the long term".


In other words, that's nothing more than (intentional?) scam. Especially if that goes without them fixing core gameplay and perf issues.

Calling that strategy "smart" is okay only if you're after a hit-and-run short-term profit. But if you really plan to "support this game for the next 10 years", then it's just dumb.
This is the internet, so bad press doesn't just disappear. Low usage stats and bad Steam reviews from neglected players will stay, and most likely get worse. So time passing it will become harder and harder to seduce new people.

Sure, this strategy will likely trap a bunch of naive console players (if CO ever manage to get that bloated game to work on these limited architectures)... But then it will be over.


Extrapolating just a bit: if they really have decided stop to communicate with us until we disappear instead of admitting what's wrong and start the consistent work needed to fix it, it means they decided for a pure cash grab, consciously or unconsciously assuming it's okay for them if we (early players) are all fooled.

Their intention is probably not that evil though. They probably really think that a couple of small bugfixes with each DLC will be enough to build a fresh, spending, not disappointed playerbase in like a year or so. But that probably won't.


In conclusion, I hope I'm wrong. But I've come to a point where that hope now feels just like a fantasy.
Click to expand...
Yeah, current players are pretty much disposable. We already fell for the trap marketing. They got our money. Judging from the player count and the lack of new "content" from "creators" a whole lot of people have moved on anyway. Laying low is the one sure way for CO to not give more cause for a huge wave of outrage which is always bad for business.

When/ if modding and console version eventually works, people will come back to the game on their own, and more importantly: new players.

They probably really think that a couple of small bugfixes with each DLC will be enough to build a fresh, spending, not disappointed playerbase in like a year or so.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure that's the way things will go.
 
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Community Managers don't work on the game. The CMs don't have any part in improving the game nor working on it, their job is to community manage everyone. And how they have disappeared and have gone completely silent when this 'supposedly' hoax has happened, when the Word of the Week was paused which was posted on Twitter but no one knew here, what part of the game is being worked, console release news & so many other things which we know nothing about.

If this is being done as a strategy, then I'm sorry this is not the correct strategy to keep everyone in the dark when your game has so much issues and have charged full price for it.
 
  • 9Like
  • 3
Reactions:
Nazarow said:
This is so bizarre, why hasn't there been any quick reaction from CO or Paradox? This is about consumer safety, not about the game development.
Click to expand...
Because CO has decided their paying customers are the enemy and deserve to be treated as such.

But really, probably whoever would be in charge of responding to issues like this doesn’t know it exists yet. CO has clearly abandoned the forums and don’t even read them anymore. Similarly, they also intentionally avoid the CS subreddit and discord channels. So if this false refund announcement doesn’t get to them via something like Twitter they’ll never see it. They probably have no idea someone has been going around doing this.
 
Last edited:
  • 7
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Huh, I guess it wasn’t a hoax. Cool :)
 
  • 5Like
  • 1
Reactions:
This topic is now obsoleted by new information, so this thread is now closed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back