The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines

[gafrad]

We are committed to repaying that loyalty, and therefore, we will compensate Ultimate Edition holders by adding 3 Creator Packs and 3 Radio Stations which, together, sum up to a value of USD 39.99. This solution hopefully ensures that you, regardless of purchase method, feel you receive fair compensation.

No, this is not a fair compensation. When I bought Ultimate Edition, I did not purchase 3 content creator packs or 3 radio stations. The 39,99$ is your made up value of something that doesn't even exist. I do not want those. I want the content I paid for.

I feel insulted and scammed. It seems borderline illegal to sell something, then not deliver what was agreed as the object of the purchase, then change the content of what was purchased, and delay that content to uncertain future far from what was promised. It's insane to me a lot of people welcomes this as good news. It is not good, not for Ultimate Edition. The good news would be that you are refunding the Ultimate Edition, giving the unfortunate UE owners the option to buy the standard edition, or forget this ever happened.

When the UE appeared on Steam Store page, it promised certain content in a certain time frame, none of which was delivered (besides the day 1 SF pack) or delivered within the promised time (Beach Properties). Now the content changed (BP pack removed) and the other DLCs that are part of it are delayed to who knows when. I didn't puchase 3 content creator packs or 3 radio stations, I did not agree on getting this content I'm not interested in, but I'm forced this content because you changed the deal. I feel like poor Lando Calrissian when Darth Vader kept altering the deal.

This is a scam. In my country, false advertising and not delivering what you paid for is illegal. I doubt Steam will refund it, but I tried nevertheless. I will also contact the national business inspection bureau and report this scammy business practice.

I only take consolation in finally learning my last lesson; never purchase content that does not exist yet, and never preorder. It's a shame I had to learn that with my favorite game franchise.

 

[TenzoZA]

While most of the comments under the thread have not yet received an answer, we are liking and will answer some more as more questions have come in during the night and during Friday!

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It really means a lot to the community seeing engagement from Paradox Staff, as you can see.

Would you please be so kind as to address my point on the keybinds issue, as I have tried raising this multiple times on the forums, and just knowing it is on your radar would mean a lot to my peace of mind, thanks. I'm not asking for much. All I want is the keybinds from Cities 1 back.

 

[unoace1006]

As a UE Buyer it has stung to not see the game progress at a faster rate.

I hope that this shift sees bugs identified in October 2023 finally addressed.

And some of the resources must be thrown at keeping an active list (at least for some period of time) of KEY bugs and their status. Key bugs:

Bugs
1) Land Value
2) Mail
3) Solar Electricity (day/night cycle)
4) Signature Building Firm Move-In
5) Park Utilization/Leisure Time

On the other hand, there may be balance issues that we've raised that you disagree with. Simply tell us and share your honest reasoning. For example, one of the more frustrating ones is the elementary school capacity. My understanding is that modifying this is as easy as increasing a number on a spreadsheet. However, there are other considerations...

1) Elementary School Capacity -- we're not raising this value because we expect to address known bugs that will make this less of an issue. Once addressed, we will re-evaluate OR this is the right balance for the gameplay we've designed and would have negative consequences to the game such as X,Y, or Z.

Visuals
1) Snow
2) Animations

Performance
1) Sim Speed optimizations
2) GPU frame rates optimizations (DLSS?)

But the bugs have to be first...because right now we're playing around the game, we're not playing the game.

 

[zige]

We haven't announced the Creator Packs content yet or their price; we think, and hope that you will agree when we are able to announce it, that you will feel it is fair compensation.

I will rather take refund for full UE. I have also escalated this to FCCA as Colossal Order is Finnish company and im Finnish citizen. Also send note to ECC as Paradox is Swedish company. So waiting for either your reply or statement from FCCA and/or ECC. If you want to talk about fair compensation about scammin i'm happy to message with you, either way im going to get my money back way or another.

 

[co_avanya]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in and address a few points that I can answer.

CO activity on the forum
Our focus is and has always been game development, which means the vast majority of our team work directly on the game. Our "community team" consists of Mariina, our CEO, Emmi, our producer, and me, the community manager (yes, we just have me on the CO side of things ^^). Mariina and Emmi have been fully focused on making sure development is as smooth as possible, while I've been digging into all the great feedback you have shared with us. With me as our only full-time community team member, we've prioritized making sure we understand and keep track of the feedback (both positive and negative) that you have shared as it's so incredibly helpful and valuable to our process.

Feedback
This leads me to concerns that the advisory meeting could lead to us only considering feedback from a narrow playstyle or group. While I can't promise we don't miss anything, I can assure you that we go through a lot of feedback from this forum, our social media channels, YouTube videos (and not just the largest creators), reddit, our modding beta group, and emails we receive. And on top of what we collect ourselves, the community team at Paradox shares valuable feedback they come across on their channels. I'm excited to see what the advisory meeting leads to, but whether we get confirmation that feedback we have already received is important, or new valuable points are raised, I'm sure it will help us understand what is important for your enjoyment of the game.

So while I haven't been replying much lately, I have been lurking and will continue to do so, popping in to answer questions when I can. ^^

 

[Sc0rpy4]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in and address a few points that I can answer.

CO activity on the forum
Our focus is and has always been game development, which means the vast majority of our team work directly on the game. Our "community team" consists of Mariina, our CEO, Emmi, our producer, and me, the community manager (yes, we just have me on the CO side of things ^^). Mariina and Emmi have been fully focused on making sure development is as smooth as possible, while I've been digging into all the great feedback you have shared with us. With me as our only full-time community team member, we've prioritized making sure we understand and keep track of the feedback (both positive and negative) that you have shared as it's so incredibly helpful and valuable to our process.

Feedback
This leads me to concerns that the advisory meeting could lead to us only considering feedback from a narrow playstyle or group. While I can't promise we don't miss anything, I can assure you that we go through a lot of feedback from this forum, our social media channels, YouTube videos (and not just the largest creators), reddit, our modding beta group, and emails we receive. And on top of what we collect ourselves, the community team at Paradox shares valuable feedback they come across on their channels. I'm excited to see what the advisory meeting leads to, but whether we get confirmation that feedback we have already received is important, or new valuable points are raised, I'm sure it will help us understand what is important for your enjoyment of the game.

So while I haven't been replying much lately, I have been lurking and will continue to do so, popping in to answer questions when I can. ^^

Thank you and @Cities: Skylines Official for responding to our questions, concerns, feedbacks. Feel free to ignore the comments that are just here to hate.

 

[matthew135i]

I simply stopped playing the game months ago and I’m not sure if I’ll pick it up again. City building games have been such a passion of mine but Skylines II was super disappointing after what Skylines had become with the input of the modding community. I appreciate it’s hard work but I’d rather Skylines II had not been released at all.

 

[gafrad]

Feel free to ignore the comments that are just here to hate.

Excuse me, what? I have not seen any hateful comments here. Since when is pointing out shady and scammy business practices hateful?

Everyone here appreciates that they're finally actually addressing concerns, however, the way Ultimate Edition is handled is far from ideal, and again, in my country it is also illegal. I truly cannot fathom how calling that out is hateful in the way it has been done in this thread.

 

[TripleAgent]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in and address a few points that I can answer.

CO activity on the forum
Our focus is and has always been game development, which means the vast majority of our team work directly on the game. Our "community team" consists of Mariina, our CEO, Emmi, our producer, and me, the community manager (yes, we just have me on the CO side of things ^^). Mariina and Emmi have been fully focused on making sure development is as smooth as possible, while I've been digging into all the great feedback you have shared with us. With me as our only full-time community team member, we've prioritized making sure we understand and keep track of the feedback (both positive and negative) that you have shared as it's so incredibly helpful and valuable to our process.

Feedback
This leads me to concerns that the advisory meeting could lead to us only considering feedback from a narrow playstyle or group. While I can't promise we don't miss anything, I can assure you that we go through a lot of feedback from this forum, our social media channels, YouTube videos (and not just the largest creators), reddit, our modding beta group, and emails we receive. And on top of what we collect ourselves, the community team at Paradox shares valuable feedback they come across on their channels. I'm excited to see what the advisory meeting leads to, but whether we get confirmation that feedback we have already received is important, or new valuable points are raised, I'm sure it will help us understand what is important for your enjoyment of the game.

So while I haven't been replying much lately, I have been lurking and will continue to do so, popping in to answer questions when I can. ^^

Is there a reason why we went days with the early-posted refund post with people theorizing rampantly about what was going on and whether it was real or a hoax or if the forums had been compromised instead of just having someone from PDX or CO pop in and say "Don't worry, it's nothing malicious, we'll have an announcement later this week"?

 

[unoace1006]

Is there a reason why we went days with the early-posted refund post with people theorizing rampantly about what was going on and whether it was real or a hoax or if the forums had been compromised instead of just having someone from PDX or CO pop in and say "Don't worry, it's nothing malicious, we'll have an announcement later this week"?

Because it was a catch 22. Saying it wasn’t malicious would have confirmed it before they intended to do so or were ready to do so. While denying it would have led to confusion or the appearance of chaos come Thursday.

Sometimes silence is the right decision. And at this point, it’s a moot point.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in and address a few points that I can answer.

CO activity on the forum
Our focus is and has always been game development, which means the vast majority of our team work directly on the game. Our "community team" consists of Mariina, our CEO, Emmi, our producer, and me, the community manager (yes, we just have me on the CO side of things ^^). Mariina and Emmi have been fully focused on making sure development is as smooth as possible, while I've been digging into all the great feedback you have shared with us. With me as our only full-time community team member, we've prioritized making sure we understand and keep track of the feedback (both positive and negative) that you have shared as it's so incredibly helpful and valuable to our process.

Feedback
This leads me to concerns that the advisory meeting could lead to us only considering feedback from a narrow playstyle or group. While I can't promise we don't miss anything, I can assure you that we go through a lot of feedback from this forum, our social media channels, YouTube videos (and not just the largest creators), reddit, our modding beta group, and emails we receive. And on top of what we collect ourselves, the community team at Paradox shares valuable feedback they come across on their channels. I'm excited to see what the advisory meeting leads to, but whether we get confirmation that feedback we have already received is important, or new valuable points are raised, I'm sure it will help us understand what is important for your enjoyment of the game.

So while I haven't been replying much lately, I have been lurking and will continue to do so, popping in to answer questions when I can. ^^

Could Cities Skylines Official or you could please address concerns wrt a roadmap or a plan on how CO is going to fulfill the increasing number of promises doled out? Things like hardwire and the simulation aspects were promised to be looked into - what happened since then, and is CO going to do anything about it?

Thanks Avanya, I know it’s not easy being in this position especially since this was not your call to make. Deeply appreciate the work you do.

 

[dgiaimo]

As a software engineer I am still mystified why we still don't have the assets we were promised from the creators that Colossal Order is directly working with. (E.g., the region packs) I well know that it can take a long time before enough bugs are ironed out to release a piece of software for public use, but I see no reason that an alpha release couldn't have been thrown together rather quickly. They must have had some sort of pipeline for getting asset files from the artists they employ into the build system for integration with the game code before initial release. I understand that such a pipeline for internal use may be very janky and unsuitable for any external use, but slapping together a website for a small number of trusted users to send files to Colossal Order for import into the game can't be more than a couple weeks development time for a single developer. What on Earth is the hold-up?

 

[ihateuselesssoftware]

Is there a reason why we went days with the early-posted refund post with people theorizing rampantly about what was going on and whether it was real or a hoax or if the forums had been compromised instead of just having someone from PDX or CO pop in and say "Don't worry, it's nothing malicious, we'll have an announcement later this week"?

not only did they leave us worrying. After they posted their message, they immediately locked all the threads related to this topic to stop any further discussion about how this incident was handled.

 

[ihateuselesssoftware]

it seems beach properties was removed from the steam store completely. So now there is no history of the bad reception. maybe thats the actual intention behind all this.

im wondering how that works for people who bought the dlc. do they still have the content?

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Because it was a catch 22. Saying it wasn’t malicious would have confirmed it before they intended to do so or were ready to do so. While denying it would have led to confusion or the appearance of chaos come Thursday.

Sometimes silence is the right decision. And at this point, it’s a moot point.

I think it’s the inconsistency that’s bugging me more than the email: they swinging wildly like a pendulum between the extremes. First before release it was all about player feedback having an impact in gameplay, then it was the players fault, then it was we will communicate, then it was not CO but the publisher (Paradox) responsibility, then the phone call from Stockholm and WOTW restarted, then ended it again and only whispered it ended on Twitter, and now finally this. It speaks of an organisation that doesn’t know what it should do and it’s causing a great deal of confusion with everyone.

Although I’m glad they seem to be swinging back to communication pendulum, there really needs to be some consistency. Fans wil be confused at this start-stop style and it naturally leads to radicalism at even the smallest mistakes. If this is the path they lead, they must stick with it and answer our questions too.

 

[sys_64738]

not only did they leave us worrying. After they posted their message, they immediately locked all the threads related to this topic to stop any further discussion about how this incident was handled.

Hi,

this is not entirely correct. I've been lurking and commenting in a thread about this topic for many days. This thread had been locked after the official announcement.

I don't know, maybe you've seen other threads than me. I just can say that at least one thread discussing this topic hadn't been closed or removed before it was official.

Best regards,
sys

 

[pixxa]

I know this is only a little part of the whole game, but if you really want to make amends I suggest that you should plan to give us some meaningful stuff for free, not an abysmal DLC.
For example, add bicycles for free, and SOON!

PS And please do not include trees and other map-making basic objects in DLCs, it's not good!

 

[ihateuselesssoftware]

Hi,

this is not entirely correct. I've been lurking and commenting in a thread about this topic for many days. This thread had been locked after the official announcement.

I don't know, maybe you've seen other threads than me. I just can say that at least one thread discussing this topic hadn't been closed or removed before it was official.

Best regards,
sys

there was one big thread ( https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/email-from-co-paradox-regarding-beach-assets.1664477/) that i followed closely.
the official announcement was made at 14:00 and the last message in the thread was at 14:30. The Message of the moderator was posted way after locking the thread, how long it was exactly i cant tell.

now that i read again what you said, i think there is a mistanderstanding. in the message you are replying to i was referring to the official statement published yesterday.

 

[MTO35]

Even if not many people want to hear this, give your developers enough time to identify errors and fix them. In short, take the time you need in the future, because you will need it.
I may also be one of the few who would like the developers and programmers to start developing the game from scratch, but that would probably be a bit overkill (in terms of time and probably also financially).
Like many others here, I'm happy that now, even if this could have happened earlier, that you yourself admit your mistakes and don't talk around them and that you might just approach things differently in the future until now. This is definitely a start.
Now it's up to you to prove to us that you're serious.
I hope that the ugly crippled duckling will turn into a beautiful swan after all. Until then, do well and stay healthy, because health is the most important thing.

 

[erkinalp]

Thunderstorm

...re, not ..rm. Even mass media refers to those Thunderstore mods.