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This is great news! I am glad to hear that things are finally moving in the right direction.
I am curious to see the patch, its improvements, and see what kind of questions are asked of the community when the survey is made available to the public!
I am curious to see the patch, its improvements, and see what kind of questions are asked of the community when the survey is made available to the public!
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Too bad that software development companies arent aware of this fact at the beginning of their development.
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I really hope this means you can detach upgrades to a certain area around the building! If not, then I'm just glad you can move and delete upgrades at will as I have a university I refuse to rebuild even though an upgrade burnt down.
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Holy **** can I just get a refund please? A whole ****ing year since launch until we see the asset editor? Mods still don't work right?? Mods don't work at all on geforce now??? It's so poorly optimized the only way I can play is through geforce now, without mods????? Please for the love of God, I paid for ultimate and I got SHAFTED as hard as could be. The content I pre paid for literally a whole 8 months ago is still not ready?????? EVEN THOUGH YOU SAY IT SHOULD BE QUICK TO IMPLEMENT???????????? DO IT THEN WTF!!!!
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The only thing that really bugs me about the transport system is how hard it is to see waypoints. If I delete a station from a line and then the line still runs through a specific alley, I know that is due to some waypoint. But finding that waypoint is hard af because its so badly visible
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Yeah but they sold 1 million unite with an average price of 60$ - I'm pretty sure they made at least 40m$ minus the refunds - isn't it worth an upgrade of a studio from small to medium and try to hire remotely or open in new countries? We understand that this game started as a small game but it is not anymore and it requires ressources, otherwise better not to launch it :/ - At this point I feel that the community are the beta testers / QA engineers and doing the work for free.
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This.
Over 40 million players on GFN and it's treated like a service no one uses. Sure, not everyone is playing GFN, but I remember on launch day the servers were so full you had to wait a long time to even play the game.
Mod support will bring some players back, and it shouldn't be that hard. A lot of games have mod support on GFN, a lot. Even other Paradox games....
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Everybody is praising this as "transparency".
I guess we have different definitions of transparency.
Here is why I don't think this is "transparency":
1. This is the first real word we've gotten on anything in a month. One communication a month is not being open and transparent.
2. This post, I'm almost 100% sure, is a direct result of conversation in the Way Forward thread where several of us yesterday and the day before were upset at the lack of communication. A month ago we were told a new patch would come in "about a month". Well, it's been "about a month", and we were looking for updates- and basically being told there's nothing to say and nobody can be sure of anything. This post is a result of that upset. The window was not transparent until we banged on it and somebody opened it up.
3. As stated, a month ago we were told to expect a patch in "about a month". Tomorrow it will have been 1 month. If you set an ETA, and then that ETA approaches, and the ETA is changing...transparency is communicating that it has changed...ahead of time. Saying the literal day before it's been a month and people are gonna start wondering what the arrival time is is not being transparent. Being transparent would be making this post a week and a half ago, when they surely knew we would not be getting a patch in "about a month".
4. This is the second major post that they have not put on one of those big cards at the top of the page. The Way Forward post and this post are not in the big "Here's a big announcement about the game!" section at the top of the screen, as if they're embarrassed of them and don't want as many eyes on them. That's DEFINITELY not transparency.
5. As usual, all timeframes given are so broad they may as well be meaningless. "June 3rd-19th" is the estimate for the next patch even though the last estimate means it should've been ready within 7 days from today. "Q4". "Some time after september". These aren't transparent timelines. They're vague estimates that, as history has shown us, are almost certainly going to be missed. Has a single thing this company has said was coming actually come out when they said it would the first time? I don't think it has, so why would that change now? There's no reason to believe any estimates given are actually going to be correct.
Transparency is proactive, not reactive.
Transparency is letting us know EXACTLY what you're working on. EXACTLY what you're changing with the economy simulation. What you INTEND to do, whether it ends up happening or not. What MIGHT and SHOULD be in the upcoming patch and how far along you estimate things are.
I mentioned this in the linked thread, but The Sims does something called a Laundry List, where they detail which specific bugs they are almost certain are gonna be fixed in the next patch. Then the patch comes out and it has those fixes, and more. There's no reason you can't do something similar. In fact, they just announced another list today, alongside an effort to do 6 straight months fo additional bug fixes using an outside company's assistance. Something to consider imitating, I think, because this game is in a far, far worse state than Sims 4 is.
Transparency is not responding to people 2 days before you're gonna be nearing a deadline with "We have nothing to say at this time" or "You guys misinterpreted what I meant when I said about a month, seems you thought I meant less than a month" (This is paraphased, but it is something that was said to us in the linked thread).
Transparency is not radio silence until people start getting upset again.
Arguably, "Hey just a heads up after this patch don't expect a word from us until somewhere around mid september probably when we come back from our state mandated vacation from all the work we are supposedly doing but just can't show you or talk about but just trust us we're totally doing tons of work but it's not far enough along for us to have ANY confidence in telling you about because we don't want to make promises even though it's been a month and we definitely should have something to show by now" is a form of transparency, but several bullet points of "We missed the mark on this and it will be late, and on this, and on this, and this other thing, all late, again, sorry" is not transparency.
It's just failure to meet basic expectations, that this company itself has set, again.
That you guys see "BTW, we're delaying assets AGAIN and we're delaying the asset editor AGAIN" and go "Wow! Transparency, yay!" is....ugh. I wish I could have that optimism, I guess.
I guess we have different definitions of transparency.
Here is why I don't think this is "transparency":
1. This is the first real word we've gotten on anything in a month. One communication a month is not being open and transparent.
2. This post, I'm almost 100% sure, is a direct result of conversation in the Way Forward thread where several of us yesterday and the day before were upset at the lack of communication. A month ago we were told a new patch would come in "about a month". Well, it's been "about a month", and we were looking for updates- and basically being told there's nothing to say and nobody can be sure of anything. This post is a result of that upset. The window was not transparent until we banged on it and somebody opened it up.
3. As stated, a month ago we were told to expect a patch in "about a month". Tomorrow it will have been 1 month. If you set an ETA, and then that ETA approaches, and the ETA is changing...transparency is communicating that it has changed...ahead of time. Saying the literal day before it's been a month and people are gonna start wondering what the arrival time is is not being transparent. Being transparent would be making this post a week and a half ago, when they surely knew we would not be getting a patch in "about a month".
4. This is the second major post that they have not put on one of those big cards at the top of the page. The Way Forward post and this post are not in the big "Here's a big announcement about the game!" section at the top of the screen, as if they're embarrassed of them and don't want as many eyes on them. That's DEFINITELY not transparency.
5. As usual, all timeframes given are so broad they may as well be meaningless. "June 3rd-19th" is the estimate for the next patch even though the last estimate means it should've been ready within 7 days from today. "Q4". "Some time after september". These aren't transparent timelines. They're vague estimates that, as history has shown us, are almost certainly going to be missed. Has a single thing this company has said was coming actually come out when they said it would the first time? I don't think it has, so why would that change now? There's no reason to believe any estimates given are actually going to be correct.
Transparency is proactive, not reactive.
Transparency is letting us know EXACTLY what you're working on. EXACTLY what you're changing with the economy simulation. What you INTEND to do, whether it ends up happening or not. What MIGHT and SHOULD be in the upcoming patch and how far along you estimate things are.
I mentioned this in the linked thread, but The Sims does something called a Laundry List, where they detail which specific bugs they are almost certain are gonna be fixed in the next patch. Then the patch comes out and it has those fixes, and more. There's no reason you can't do something similar. In fact, they just announced another list today, alongside an effort to do 6 straight months fo additional bug fixes using an outside company's assistance. Something to consider imitating, I think, because this game is in a far, far worse state than Sims 4 is.
Transparency is not responding to people 2 days before you're gonna be nearing a deadline with "We have nothing to say at this time" or "You guys misinterpreted what I meant when I said about a month, seems you thought I meant less than a month" (This is paraphased, but it is something that was said to us in the linked thread).
Transparency is not radio silence until people start getting upset again.
Arguably, "Hey just a heads up after this patch don't expect a word from us until somewhere around mid september probably when we come back from our state mandated vacation from all the work we are supposedly doing but just can't show you or talk about but just trust us we're totally doing tons of work but it's not far enough along for us to have ANY confidence in telling you about because we don't want to make promises even though it's been a month and we definitely should have something to show by now" is a form of transparency, but several bullet points of "We missed the mark on this and it will be late, and on this, and on this, and this other thing, all late, again, sorry" is not transparency.
It's just failure to meet basic expectations, that this company itself has set, again.
That you guys see "BTW, we're delaying assets AGAIN and we're delaying the asset editor AGAIN" and go "Wow! Transparency, yay!" is....ugh. I wish I could have that optimism, I guess.
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![[Delta ²k5]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/styles/paradox/owneditems/avatars/majesty2_avatars/Other/s/majesty2_avatar_127.png){kind=avatar}
You should really take a look at the ingame credits I feel. Many tasks like 3D art creation is already outsourced (which you basically can see ingame as the style on models is completely different). Also QA is not just done internally but also by PDX and an external QA company (likely on demand)
The thing is that it makes no sense to put another 3 developers onto the same task - it won't make things better or faster, it will make things only more complicated and harder to manage (it's like adding another three guys into a two people team in school working on an essay which should also write their part. The result will be anything but good as everyone has his/her own style and pace. In the end it will require more work to make everything fit together somehow).
What CO needs would be specific experts to point out where to improve what, but as they have direct support by Unity (see credits) there isn't much they can actually do. CO and Unity have to find the bottlenecks.
"Better not to launch it" does not necessary relate to the quality of the product or the amount of bugs. In the end it's a business decision by the Publisher (as PDX funds the whole development and marketing) when the software is released to public. They mainly have to focus on the ROI (return of investment) in their case.
When internal and external testing comes to the conclusion that the "definition of done" on all stories/features has been fulfilled, or (depending on how they develop internally) if all requirements coming from business are fulfilled, and if no functional blockers are discovered there is no valid reason to hold back the release from a business perspective. Business however always takes the responsibility if its decided to release something with known bugs/issues/risks (which I think was the case on the C:S2 release).
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PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! Do NOT forget about VANILLA players! What made CS1 so great was how much fun the base game was. Mods are cool and all, but I think a lot of players watched YouTube videos and became infatuated with decorating and mods. CS1 was great by itself.
Even now that mods are available I haven't used ANY other than downloading new maps. CS2 has a lot of potential. Please don't mess it up by forgetting about us vanilla players. At the end of the day, us vanilla players are the ones you need to be making happy.
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I have too much going on in real life to worry about what patch is going to be released when. Thus, the delays don't bother me - much.
I'd love to see the game speed improve once you reach 80,000 - 100,000 citizens.
I'd love to see the game speed improve once you reach 80,000 - 100,000 citizens.
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I would hope that if they aren't hitting console benchnarks, the economy rework will have a goal of reducing the cpu load.
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This might be a given but I couldn’t see any details in improvements of game optimisation etc… Is it just assumed this will be the case ?
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They clarified on Facebook that optimizations will come with every patch.
In any case it's basically also mentioned in the console part of the announcement:
This will also improve FPS on PC as Xbox hardware is basically PC hardware and uses mostly the same APIs/drivers as Windows does.
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I'm a little surprised by some of the reactions to this statement.
The patch announced as "huge economy rework" and there are just no details about economy. The only functionalities that were given were building extensions mechanic and terrain painting.
Economy? Ehm, uhh, "we're working, we need more time, we're making progress, etc."
New buildings, new vehicles, painting/detailing... you can see the influence of "representative people from the community".
- See how beautiful the post office looks in my city. How many trees, bushes and benches...!
- Ok, but did they fix it? Is it working already?
- No, it doesn't, but look how beautiful it looks! Give me a sub!
LOL
The patch announced as "huge economy rework" and there are just no details about economy. The only functionalities that were given were building extensions mechanic and terrain painting.
Economy? Ehm, uhh, "we're working, we need more time, we're making progress, etc."
New buildings, new vehicles, painting/detailing... you can see the influence of "representative people from the community".
- See how beautiful the post office looks in my city. How many trees, bushes and benches...!
- Ok, but did they fix it? Is it working already?
- No, it doesn't, but look how beautiful it looks! Give me a sub!
LOL
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I'm noticing themes with these updates. So here is what I see:
Economy Re-work:
"soon"
"a few more weeks"
"aim to release the patch in the window June 3rd - June 19th" (no reason to believe this timeline based on history as I have yet to see a deadline hit)
Creator Packs
"pushed to post-summer"
"This means we will move the Creator Packs to release after the summer lock."
Another delay on something I paid for almost a year ago. Sure.
Summer Lock
....... CO, please don't even tell us about your vacation time at this point. It's not like things are moving at a rational pace anyway. I doubt we'd even notice if you went on vacation and it just causes the community to get stirred up and arguing over regional PTO policies.
Upcoming Patches
"scheduled for release soon"
"expected after summer"
"making progress"
"no promises"
More vague statements with no accountability or awareness.
Consoles
"not hitting the stability and performance targets that we want to reach" (you don't say)
"still hope we can keep the timeline for an October release. But, to set expectations, the window for an October release is shrinking and it might have to be delayed further."
If (and it's a big if) a console version is able to be released it's beyond the horizon.
Player Feedback
Who are the modders and groups testing and providing feedback? Or dare I ask, what is that feedback? This is an empty share as you've had 8 months of feedback to gather and assess, which we have seen zero adjustment. The only exception being a backtrack on the "Beach" DLC. But at least you were able to remove the worst rated DLC of all time off the steam marketplace.
In summation, there's nothing substantial here per usual. As a previous supporter/defender of this game I'm in full reality mode. Good luck and CO speed...
Economy Re-work:
"soon"
"a few more weeks"
"aim to release the patch in the window June 3rd - June 19th" (no reason to believe this timeline based on history as I have yet to see a deadline hit)
Creator Packs
"pushed to post-summer"
"This means we will move the Creator Packs to release after the summer lock."
Another delay on something I paid for almost a year ago. Sure.
Summer Lock
....... CO, please don't even tell us about your vacation time at this point. It's not like things are moving at a rational pace anyway. I doubt we'd even notice if you went on vacation and it just causes the community to get stirred up and arguing over regional PTO policies.
Upcoming Patches
"scheduled for release soon"
"expected after summer"
"making progress"
"no promises"
More vague statements with no accountability or awareness.
Consoles
"not hitting the stability and performance targets that we want to reach" (you don't say)
"still hope we can keep the timeline for an October release. But, to set expectations, the window for an October release is shrinking and it might have to be delayed further."
If (and it's a big if) a console version is able to be released it's beyond the horizon.
Player Feedback
Who are the modders and groups testing and providing feedback? Or dare I ask, what is that feedback? This is an empty share as you've had 8 months of feedback to gather and assess, which we have seen zero adjustment. The only exception being a backtrack on the "Beach" DLC. But at least you were able to remove the worst rated DLC of all time off the steam marketplace.
In summation, there's nothing substantial here per usual. As a previous supporter/defender of this game I'm in full reality mode. Good luck and CO speed...
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Yeah, because the wall of text will be covered in different dev diaries for the different sub topics - If you didn't see it here is it:
This was basically a short information about the current state of development and an announcement that there will be dev diaries following until the whole patch is ready.
Also worth to mention is that "Cities: Skylines Official" is a Paradox account, not a "Colossal Order Dev" account which means it's used by PDX staff (community managers or PR) who don't have development details. They may only have received some rough information provided likely by a business owner/product management.
I think co_martsu or co_avanya will start the dev diary series next Monday, as that usually was the schedule for dev diaries.
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