Where is a message from the CO team this week. Are my expectations too high?

[Darthgrim]

I understand that CO have been enjoying the summer break and were off for almost 4 weeks. I hope they all had a great holiday and are well rested returning to the office this week.

I was kind of expecting that CO would come back ready to start addressing things. I had also hoped we hear from them on some of the major issues that have been shared in recent weeks with 1.1.7f1 patch, and even some of the awesome mods people have had to create to try and workaround the bugs and issues. (Example: Bye Bye Homeless)

Are my expectations too high, even to expect them to say "Hi everyone we're back, we've seen all your posts, and we prioritising XYZ. Or working on ABC to help address 123, expect to hear more as we are working on a new patch for this month?"

The game has gotten better in the recent months, but CO, you still have so much do to in repairing the trust with your player base. I know you've said in the past that you feel like communication is only met with negative responses. However, you need to be the bigger person here and keep sharing and keep posting so people can see engagement and want to be motivated by your game.

PS, yes this is a rhetorical question, I already know what the answer is, but I've been waiting all week to hear something from CO or Paradox about the state of the game, and yet, we are just left with silence. I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking this.

PSS, if anyone else has been posted, its clearly not in a visible place, as I have been looking at this forum the past week and seen nothing.

 

[Jeruntje]

Co_avanya posted a message yesterday. So I think we could safely say they slowly are getting back to work.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to share beyond them being scheduled for Q3.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

No, your expectations aren't too high.

 

[co_avanya]

We generally try to avoid announcement posts that don't have anything substantial. "We're back" without some kind of update doesn't feel like it would offer you anything of value, so we didn't make one. Roadmaps and timelines are entirely up to Paradox if/when/how they want to share those, so the best I can do is confirm that we're back in the office and that we'll continue working on bug fixes and improvements for the game.

The issue with homelessness popped up before the holiday break, so it's something we're already aware of, though at this time I don't have an ETA for a fix. And while I'm still in the process of getting properly caught up, I'm on the lookout for other important issues the team needs to be aware of, which haven't already been caught and forwarded by the Paradox team.

While it may not be the update you were expecting to see, I hope it can at least help to confirm that we are indeed back and working towards the next update.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Thanks again @co_avanya

 

[Civ5rako]

We generally try to avoid announcement posts that don't have anything substantial. "We're back" without some kind of update doesn't feel like it would offer you anything of value, so we didn't make one. (...)

The issue with homelessness popped up before the holiday break, so it's something we're already aware of, though at this time I don't have an ETA for a fix.

I am sorry, but statements like yours above make me wonder how you are looking at both, your own performance (as a company) and your relationship with your customers.

Just to recap:
You were lucky enough that "the certification for the patch was 'delayed'". This gave you a long weekend without disturbance.
Then, after that additionial long weekend, you released the patch and ... voila, the homeless bug appeared. Which, btw, raises some questions about the "certification processes" in place, but that may be another story.
You however went into your summer break.

So, having had your well deserved vacation, you came back in the knowledge that players had been left with that bug for four weeks without any hope for a quick fix.

Has it ever come to your mind that something like "We are back, and we will immediately start working on fixing the 'homeless bug'" would have been something players were waiting for?
Obviously not.

That's remarkable, to say the least.

 

[:AKIRAN1765]

I am sorry, but statements like yours above make me wonder how you are looking at both, your own performance (as a company) and your relationship with your customers.

Just to recap:
You were lucky enough that "the certification for the patch was 'delayed'". This gave you a long weekend without disturbance.
Then, after that additionial long weekend, you released the patch and ... voila, the homeless bug appeared. Which, btw, raises some questions about the "certification processes" in place, but that may be another story.
You however went into your summer break.

So, having had your well deserved vacation, you came back in the knowledge that players had been left with that bug for four weeks without any hope for a quick fix.

Has it ever come to your mind that something like "We are back, and we will immediately start working on fixing the 'homeless bug'" would have been something players were waiting for?
Obviously not.

That's remarkable, to say the least.

Wondering why some people think others come back from vacation and do nothing the whole day. Of course, they came back as announced on August 5th, and of course, they started working on things. We don’t need a message every time they arrive at the office and leave the office… oh, and in between, they even did some coding. Sorry, but at some point, I think it’s a bit over the top to complain about every little thing they do. Just my opinion... Ready to collect the red 'X's.

 

[MostBlunted]

The issue with homelessness popped up before the holiday break, so it's something we're already aware of, though at this time I don't have an ETA for a fix.

No ETA usually means something between now and the end of time. In gaming business it usually means not in the next 4 weeks. I still wonder, how this bug passed QA? I mean it doesn´t happen when someone does some crazy things in some crazy circumstances. It always happen, you just have to play long enough to notice it.

 

[unoace1006]

There have been many times for the playerbase to complain. The efforts to finalize and polish Econ 2.0 + the implementation of a significant number of assets & new detailing features before July 5th is a breath of fresh air.

I think we can excuse a lack of communication week 1 post break because it shouldn't be an expectation. Give em a few weeks. They're cooking.

 

[Mazisky]

Thank you Aviana. Please also take a look about the issue of normal citizens (non homeless) not using parks and leaving all of them empty.

 

[Seth C Triggs]

We generally try to avoid announcement posts that don't have anything substantial. "We're back" without some kind of update doesn't feel like it would offer you anything of value, so we didn't make one. Roadmaps and timelines are entirely up to Paradox if/when/how they want to share those, so the best I can do is confirm that we're back in the office and that we'll continue working on bug fixes and improvements for the game.

The issue with homelessness popped up before the holiday break, so it's something we're already aware of, though at this time I don't have an ETA for a fix. And while I'm still in the process of getting properly caught up, I'm on the lookout for other important issues the team needs to be aware of, which haven't already been caught and forwarded by the Paradox team.

While it may not be the update you were expecting to see, I hope it can at least help to confirm that we are indeed back and working towards the next update.

Thanks so much!

I am also hoping that the transit loading bug (there is a stopgap mod for this apparently) can be looked into. I bet this would solve a LOT of issues. Hopefully if you could forward that to the Dev team to see if they can prioritize that too, that would probably help a ton! I suspect there's a number of transport/traffic issues that stem from that.

 

[RuralConurbation]

For me, it comes down to a fundamental approach to customer satisfaction. In any commercial environment, if a supplier wants to maintain that satisfaction, even if it is low at a given moment, it requires communication with the customer base. While Avanya may be the community manager at CO, it must be clear at CO that the latest patch has (again) left a large proportion of the customer base less than satisfied and that some humility needs to come from somebody with a reasonable level of authority and with a mechanism which reaches the widest range of customers. Even if a communication doesn't come with a plan to address the "fat rabbit" issues, a recognition that there are still issues which are upsetting customers would go a long way toward keeping customers on side.

The problem is that CO/PDX have not demonstrated a customer focused approach to satisfaction, probably ever, with CS:2. If this is deliberate or because they simply "don't get it" is unclear - but most of us expect to see some humility, and waiting until Friday lunchtime to say anything seems like treating the customer base with derision and only putting out something because they have run out of runway.

 

[RodrigoMileski]

. I still wonder, how this bug passed QA?

I am still wondering how the base game passed QA and Steam certification .....

 

[Sequeira]

We generally try to avoid announcement posts that don't have anything substantial. "We're back" without some kind of update doesn't feel like it would offer you anything of value, so we didn't make one. Roadmaps and timelines are entirely up to Paradox if/when/how they want to share those, so the best I can do is confirm that we're back in the office and that we'll continue working on bug fixes and improvements for the game.

The issue with homelessness popped up before the holiday break, so it's something we're already aware of, though at this time I don't have an ETA for a fix. And while I'm still in the process of getting properly caught up, I'm on the lookout for other important issues the team needs to be aware of, which haven't already been caught and forwarded by the Paradox team.

While it may not be the update you were expecting to see, I hope it can at least help to confirm that we are indeed back and working towards the next update.

Thanks. My I call your attention to this "no tourists demand in city" bug: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/tourists-not-appear-in-the-city.1694352/#post-29756800. This really affects part of the simulation of the economy of any real city. In fact there's a mod that restore the gameplay for the homeless bug but no one for the no tourist bug as far as I know.

 

[Darthgrim]

Come on CO, you’ve been back a full week now. What’s happening? When are you going to give your community some actual news. It would really shown your commitment to your customers if there was a post today….

@Paradox, can you please have a call with your CO developers and discuss the importance of communication and how it can improve customer engagement. If you guys had any customer surveys your NPS scores would be dismal…

We understand you don’t like to give dates, we know (hope) you’re busy fixing things. But playing a buggy game is just so disheartening. I am a collectors edition owner still waiting to play the game like it was promised originally. You’ve said this isn’t an early acces game, so why does it play like it is?

Can you please post an update and share what you all achieved over the past week, so you can demonstrate the determination to actually communicate and show your remain loyal player base what we can expect in the next few weeks? (Unless you’ve all been too busy sharing photos of your summer holidays with each other )

These ground breaking bugs need to be fixed.

 

[RodrigoMileski]

Can you please post an update and share what you all achieved over the past week, so you can demonstrate the determination to actually communicate and show your remain loyal player base what we can expect in the next few weeks?

Almost what my boss said in today's meeting ... ( and I thought to myself, "get forked") ...

 

[Darthgrim]

No offence but maybe you should talk to your manager about where you’re not meeting your objectives.

This is something usually said when there are doubts that an individual or team are under performing. In our case here we have a developer that is underperforming. So I’ve asked them the provide some evidence to counter.

While this may come across as rough, I mean this in the best interests of helping improve CO’s status and also give their loyal customers some much needed insights to how or when things will be improved.

Every day they continue to keep their heads in the sand and ignore providing clear communications continues to hurt their reputation further and further.

 

[Potoroo]

Come on CO, you’ve been back a full week now. What’s happening? When are you going to give your community some actual news. It would really shown your commitment to your customers if there was a post today….

@Paradox, can you please have a call with your CO developers and discuss the importance of communication and how it can improve customer engagement. If you guys had any customer surveys your NPS scores would be dismal…

We understand you don’t like to give dates, we know (hope) you’re busy fixing things. But playing a buggy game is just so disheartening. I am a collectors edition owner still waiting to play the game like it was promised originally. You’ve said this isn’t an early acces game, so why does it play like it is?

Can you please post an update and share what you all achieved over the past week, so you can demonstrate the determination to actually communicate and show your remain loyal player base what we can expect in the next few weeks? (Unless you’ve all been too busy sharing photos of your summer holidays with each other )

These ground breaking bugs need to be fixed.

"Share what you all achieved this week"! Entitled much?

Avanya already said in this very thread that they'll give us some "actual news" when there's some actual news to give. This is not about real communication, you're just beating up on CO for the hell of it.

 

[Civ5rako]

"Share what you all achieved this week"! Entitled much?

Yes. By the power of having paid good money for the game while still waiting for the product to be delivered in the advertised form.

 

[Co Starring]

As a Dutch Gen-X (double communication disability) kinda guy, I'm sticking to the blunt facts:

Release date : 24 Oct, 2023
76 days to go untill we reach the 1 year anniversary.
And I feel more and more disappointment about CS:2.

I hope it will turn around. But in the meantime, I'm playing other games. (So the YT poll about when I enjoy playing CS:2 the most, was enough for me to come over here and express these emotions)

Hopefully I didn't put any dents in people's feelings, but I took extra care to not use any bad words/expressions in this message.

See you guys when I think the game is fun to play.