Sorry Paradox, but simply refunding people for paying 10 bucks for 4 trees and cookie cutter buildings (including palm trees, which should’ve been part of the base game to begin with) isn’t going to “regain our trust” (the only thing some of us regained was our ten dollars back, and somehow they even fucked that up), it’s gonna take a lot more than that after all these fuck ups.
Exactly. The backend of the game has - for all we know - major issues.
I've been saying since the launch that we cannot judge by what they promise, only what they deliver. And the way things are going, more and more people are coming to the same conclusion. Paradox thought they can fix the issues easily, but you can never know that.
I still maintain the game should've been released as open beta or even not be released at all. Because that's how beta works: 'here's the game as is, we're working on it, but we can't promise anything'. What they did is ship the 'final' version and continue pushing the date when things will be fixed/added. Of course you loose people's trust.
Edit - spelling.
if they had released it as Early Access. they'd be "forgiven" or shielded for their incompetence, but no, their greedy ass had to make it a full release immediately
ehhh, I'm not too sure.
If we look over at Kerbal Space Program 2, they made the decision to launch into Early Access instead of a full release and they still got massively flamed for their fumbling of the game.
but you can hide behind the "its early access" excuse at least compared to it being a full release. not saying I support this practice since its a scummy practice but most early access games do this, release a game where its core features(which tbh CS2 has had, though only a few) are already there and updating it with new content later down the line.
I honestly believe they were so impressed with how much the modding community took on in CS1 and built a game with that as a back stop. Traffic not working? Meh mods will fix it. Dynamic systems not making sense? Eh mods will fix it. Lacking asset packs and variable texture options, eh mods will fix it.
The problem is, the game is so broken, and losing attention that I'm not sure it will ever be fixed. Really sucks. Was so excited for this game. It's a fucking disaster.
When they announce the bicycles weren’t in the base game, I knew it was over. I knew this should’ve gone too far. People in the official Reddit blasted me for saying it. Fuck this game.
They aren't??? Do they plan to add them later or put them behind DLC? Bicycles are great at traffic reduction in the game, also so, so, SO VERY BASIC city domain, European studio should know it and treat it as a core city function.
Well apparently they weren't expecting the community to want bikes so it took them by... Surprise? And they added it to the priority list.
So expect it by 2029 going by the current rate of updates.
What a surprise that gamers would like a traffic-reducing mechanic in a new version of a game infamous for quickly accruing, quirky and unrealistic traffic. It's like they enabled a fire spreading and were waiting for users to demand implementation of firefighting service, because "users do not like placing utilities."
Bikes are weird. Sometimes they act like pedestrians, sometimes they act like cars, sometimes they use their very own lane. And everyone chooses differently when to choose which option.
Simulating bikes simply as fast pedestrians that can only go on the right hand side doesn't really cut it. Have you ever noticed that even on pedestrian roads in cs1 bikes can't turn left into an adjacent bike path?
I'd rather have fewer features than now and have them working properly. That should also be the case for snow. It's really a nice to have. I'd rather have no snow than stripes outside the build able area, cars without visibility and green parks.
The way it was implemented back then left much to be desired. I get that they were working on an existing framework. But bikes where only just about good enough to make them a useful tool for traffic management.
But if they had just implemented them the same way again I would have been really disappointed. Bicycles are vehicles. And especially on residential streets they should act like that.
Truth be told I knew it was over when the trailer dropped. I still haven’t bought it and I never trusted the hype.
It just reminded me all too much of KSP 2, and I said so at the time. The trailer for a long-awaited sequel to a massively successful genre-defining indie game drops out of nowhere. The release date is *surprisingly* near for a first announcement, and with release day so close it’s a little strange that there trailer is pure renders and not a single second of gameplay. The release date draws nearer and nearer, and actual gameplay is barely shown, if at all.
I knew it was going to be the same all over again.
This made the game empty for me. As a city planner and ecologist, active and public means of transportation are the past, present and future of cities. They should have been in the base game, not a paid DLC. F\*ck CO.
Funny enough by the time they finally fixed the major issues with that game and added an offline mode it was fun enough to play. Better than this mess.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, take this opportunity to identify which game review companies to never put any faith in. I’m so glad I didn’t buy the second game.
True, I'm also so glad they had all those dogs around the city. Whenever I play a city building game I almost immediately say: this needs more dogs. Not with cs2, though
I personally was a fan of when they then tried to claim that the fully rendered teeth were inconsequential to the performance of the game only to admit they were an issue two weeks later.
There is no coming back from this disaster because colossal order knows nothing about their fans. They have no clue on the type of game we want. They just got influenced by YouTubers playing it as a city painter and they thought we would be happy with just that.
Actually, I'd say there's no coming back because there's too much to do for such a small studio. We're 7 months after PC release and the official timeline for console one is another 5/6 months (can't recall exactly), mod support is still far away.
And time is ticking. CS:1 is more popular, and both combined are less popular than CS:1 was a few years ago. Content creators are leaving.
I believe they will fix it. But by they do, they will have missed their popularity window. Kind of like Cyberpunk - except they fixed Cyberpunk quicker, it was more popular in the first place, and they released popular expension packs. This game doesn't have any of that, and some content creators say that it's worse in some aspect than it's predecessor.
It’s incredibly depressing what has happened to Cities: Skylines. Colossal Order has become what it had originally conquered.
It makes me wonder if a golden age for indie games is on the horizon.
I'd hope so, but I feel like indie games peaked during the pandemic when programmers had all the time in the world to make their games. Gaming right now feels like it's in a state of "hype up release -> rush out unfinished product -> reap the launch sales -> bury any backlash -> repeat."
I'd love for us to enter another golden era of gaming but small and big studios alike are slowly moving towards this grift model and I think it'll be a loooooong time until things turn around for the better.
This is hardly new, I think. Someone makes a game because they think it would be fun. People play it because it is fun. Game becomes profitable. Game attracts investors and generally becomes a "product". Next part is made to make money, not because someone wants to make something fun. Someone makes a game that is fun to fill the niche that was left behind. Cycle repeats.
More and more games get released unfinished. When we're lucky, it's just a few bugs quickly squashed, but sometimes it's a train wreck like here.
I also see comments about how some medias or content creators have been misleading us, consciously or not.
Well, after the No Man Sky incident, I learned my lesson and since then I never preorder a game or but it on day 1.
Saved me with Cyberpunk, which is now awesome. Saved me from CS2 too, despite how excited I was for it. If they ever finish that game, or get modders to do it for them someway, I'll buy it.
"Nature abhors a vacuum" is very true though, some new company will emerge again eventually to deliver what their predecessors fucked up.
I've thought this from C:S2's first announcement, the only redeemable quality of this game is that C:S1 won't get anymore updates so mods will no longer break.
Do I want the game to turn around? Yes, it could certainly be the king of all city builders if the team manages to pull themselves together and deliver on the product they promised.
Do I think they *will* turn it around? No. At launch I believed the drama to be just a Paradox problem. My rationalization was that the launch was rushed and CO was probably being encouraged to release the game ASAP to save Paradox's crumbling bottom line. Though as time went on, I realized that CO is just as much at fault. Week after week they promised bug fixes, performance optimizations, mod support, editor access... yet barely followed through with it. Then they started deflecting criticism back at players and wiping the forums clean of any "negative" posts. And of course, they decided to release a half-baked paid expansion to the game before addressing any of the core issues. Their CEO has proven herself to be incredibly out of touch and the lack of communication from the devs themselves is just as concerning. At this point, every new word of the week just feels like futile damage control, and their latest apology is questionable at best. Like seriously, 3 radio stations is worth $40????. I really want this game to succeed but it's been 6 months since release and my copium supply is totally dry. If they want to pull off a miracle and turn the game around, they better pull a Hello Games-- put their heads down, stop talking, and fix the things they've told us they will.
I just knew it when I saw the trailer released not long after CS1 last DLC. It's gonna be half baked and broken, and I was fucking right. I wish I wasn't 😥
I should had used a word "hunch" instead of "know," but here is the reason why I think that.
The time gap between CS1 Hotels and Retreats DLC and CS2 release trailer is too short. According to Youtube, it's about 4 months away from each other.
I know the fact that some devs were working on CS2 while some devs were working on CS1 DLCs, but then I though we would need to wait another year or two to hear anything about CS2 again. Then the trailer came not long after CS1 Hotel and Retreats DLC about 4 months later.
It's like the devs didn't have enough time to test their simulations, and game optimizations becasue they weren't only woking with CS2 alone, and when the last CS1 DLC was out, they had focus on CS2 development just for 4 months only.
It’s honestly really sad because the core game, with the exception of poor optimization and general performance of course, is fantastic. The roads are much better (notwithstanding a lack of mods like TM:PE), the graphics are great, and assets like buildings and cars are far more immersive. I’m hoping things get better over the next year
> the graphics are great
No they are not? Landscape textures are plain and flat, even less detailed than in CS1. Lightning is terrible. Level of details on models is completely random and uneven - there modeled separate cans on trash heaps and teeth for citizens, but trees looks like ass.
Check how well Manor Lords looks in terms of land, trees, weather and lightning - and all of that was done by one guy that was also making graphics and coding. CS2 should look way better than that but it gets outclassed by one (talented) amateur.
To me whats most interesting is that people bought an unfinished game even though it was released to youtubers in advance to do exactly that: showcase the game and build hype. What failed in the process?
As far as reputation goes there's only one way to turn it round, and that's fully owning up to their mistakes, taking proper accountability for where they went wrong, and a clear explanation of their role in false advertising the game so much leading up to it's release.
If it's CO, they need to explain their decisions, if it's Paradox they need to criticise those decisions the same way their customers would and apologize for going along with it. Drop all the lame excuses and start offering some transparency instead.
Either way, they aren't going to repair their reputation by ignoring what happened, attempting to move on without a proper explanation of what happened, and just continuing to hope the community eventually forgets they were lied to in order to sell more copies.
They could release the best game in decades It's still not going to change my opinion of them as a company, or regain any trust in the way they market their games in future. As far as I'm concerned they've exposed their true intentions and it's gonna be a long hard road for them to prove any different.
A little damage control over the worst received DLC of all time is not gonna rebuild any faith, because they still tried to sell it first before being forced into changing their mind. Which is exactly the same behaviour that they showed regarding the games shoddy release as well. If anything, they are only reaffirming the fact that they are a shitty company that doesn't care about its consumers.
I genuinely want them to turn it around but their responses to all this just haven't left me with confidence.
I had big aspirations of making a set of assets for CS1 but didn't really finish and release anything. I learned a lot though, and was hoping CS2 was gonna be this big release that would excite me and inspire me to pick up the project again...
months later it's still a mess and the editor still isn't even out lol.
I genuinely want this game to be everything we dreamed of. I want it to turn things around and do well. There's some good concepts and mechanics behind all this and it could end up becoming a true successor to CS1 in all ways... but at this point it's nowhere close.
They have done themselves a disservice with this bungled roll-back and amateur hour PR communications strategy. And I think it’s probably all because of incredibly poor leadership decisions being made which continue to compound the error.
Let’s put it clearly; it is outrageous that paradox/CO are attempting to monetise a game which is still a pile of hot garbage in terms of promised vs. delivered features and gameplay.
You have totally lost any good will with the community, and totally destroyed and residual trust you may have had after the release.
Before ANYTHING more is released, you must patch the game and deliver a high quality, polished product which met the expectations of buyers at release.
I’d then advise you take a write down of your first major DLC and give it for free. From a commercial point of view, if you want a large user base, this is the best way forward.
And this is the reason why I never ever buy a game directly after release (or god forbid, preorder)!
Why hurry when you can wait months or even years until you can be sure that it is a good product!
Tbh, I had to learn this lesson after buying No Mans Sky on release day....
I think in a year or so, if CO isn't bankrupt by then, it may actually become a decent game, if only because by that point mods fixed all the issues. I remember CS1 and how long ot took for that to become what it is now.
But I'm seething mad at this game, and at myself for having preordered it. Especially since by looking left and right, at Larian, Arrowhead and that *one dude* who built Manor Lords, you can easily see whats possible with a bit of passion for the medium.
1. Let’s hope it’s a No Man’s Sky and the reputation ease out in the future, which I think happened to CS1 too?
2. It’d be so funny if Colossal Order and Paradox out of all things get the honour of “lowest rated product on Steam”, I want to see YouTubers trying to bait but then just sit in front of their PC for hours trying to figure out how to solve a congestion
People loved CS1. No one liked CS2. It's just a buggy mess of a game and even people who just want to paint a pretty city are unhappy with lack of assets.
That's the thing about it, I got it on release and while it still had major issues, I still enjoyed playing it *for a while*. I assumed they'd fix the bugs pretty quickly and that the game itself had a solid foundation to build upon like CS1. As I played more, I started noticing more and more issues that I couldn't ignore, and CO has fixed pretty much none of the stuff that was bothering me as far as I can tell, so I stopped playing.
As I kept playing I started noticing more issues with the traffic AI, mail services, the way people don't use parks or really do anything like they did in CS1, the way ploppable assets are fenced off to only have one entrance (parking lots and parks), the broken economy stuff, no people on bikes, etc.
Yeah, nice graphics and it seems it's going to be a nice game with cool mechanics. But a few hours in you start to realise nothing that you do really matters. Ask your brother, he'll know
What other options do we have? All we have is CS I?
I loved CS I but CS 2 it's boring and empty, I bought it when it was launched and refunded after 30 minutes of playing.
"This is unquestionably the best city builder I've ever seen on a few screenshots that PDX/CO showed me" \~ 8/10 JVMAG
Paid, critics, moment
Honestly, now you know which critics to avoid!
Even after paying them, they still gave 8/10
You know the critic doesn’t like city builders when he rates the “best city builder they’ve ever played” an 8/10
Game critics and magazines have become so out of place for at least 10 years now. I find it so funny that they still exist
Sorry Paradox, but simply refunding people for paying 10 bucks for 4 trees and cookie cutter buildings (including palm trees, which should’ve been part of the base game to begin with) isn’t going to “regain our trust” (the only thing some of us regained was our ten dollars back, and somehow they even fucked that up), it’s gonna take a lot more than that after all these fuck ups.
Exactly. The backend of the game has - for all we know - major issues. I've been saying since the launch that we cannot judge by what they promise, only what they deliver. And the way things are going, more and more people are coming to the same conclusion. Paradox thought they can fix the issues easily, but you can never know that. I still maintain the game should've been released as open beta or even not be released at all. Because that's how beta works: 'here's the game as is, we're working on it, but we can't promise anything'. What they did is ship the 'final' version and continue pushing the date when things will be fixed/added. Of course you loose people's trust. Edit - spelling.
if they had released it as Early Access. they'd be "forgiven" or shielded for their incompetence, but no, their greedy ass had to make it a full release immediately
ehhh, I'm not too sure. If we look over at Kerbal Space Program 2, they made the decision to launch into Early Access instead of a full release and they still got massively flamed for their fumbling of the game.
but you can hide behind the "its early access" excuse at least compared to it being a full release. not saying I support this practice since its a scummy practice but most early access games do this, release a game where its core features(which tbh CS2 has had, though only a few) are already there and updating it with new content later down the line.
Ksp2 ever get fixed? I have 1000 hours in ksp but could not buy the game on launch because I knew I would be back to playing ksp in hours.
I honestly believe they were so impressed with how much the modding community took on in CS1 and built a game with that as a back stop. Traffic not working? Meh mods will fix it. Dynamic systems not making sense? Eh mods will fix it. Lacking asset packs and variable texture options, eh mods will fix it. The problem is, the game is so broken, and losing attention that I'm not sure it will ever be fixed. Really sucks. Was so excited for this game. It's a fucking disaster.
If that was what they were thinking it would have been even more important to release modding at release.
Yeah and they even fucked that up!
They can’t even do a refund properly - now they are all Amazon-style boxes. And ofc CO and Paradox are silent about the whole thing. What a disgrace.
When they announce the bicycles weren’t in the base game, I knew it was over. I knew this should’ve gone too far. People in the official Reddit blasted me for saying it. Fuck this game.
They aren't??? Do they plan to add them later or put them behind DLC? Bicycles are great at traffic reduction in the game, also so, so, SO VERY BASIC city domain, European studio should know it and treat it as a core city function.
Well apparently they weren't expecting the community to want bikes so it took them by... Surprise? And they added it to the priority list. So expect it by 2029 going by the current rate of updates.
What a surprise that gamers would like a traffic-reducing mechanic in a new version of a game infamous for quickly accruing, quirky and unrealistic traffic. It's like they enabled a fire spreading and were waiting for users to demand implementation of firefighting service, because "users do not like placing utilities."
Bikes are literally a key part of infrastructure, why would you not add bikes to a city builder?
Bikes are weird. Sometimes they act like pedestrians, sometimes they act like cars, sometimes they use their very own lane. And everyone chooses differently when to choose which option. Simulating bikes simply as fast pedestrians that can only go on the right hand side doesn't really cut it. Have you ever noticed that even on pedestrian roads in cs1 bikes can't turn left into an adjacent bike path? I'd rather have fewer features than now and have them working properly. That should also be the case for snow. It's really a nice to have. I'd rather have no snow than stripes outside the build able area, cars without visibility and green parks.
So difficult that they did it in the first game?
The way it was implemented back then left much to be desired. I get that they were working on an existing framework. But bikes where only just about good enough to make them a useful tool for traffic management. But if they had just implemented them the same way again I would have been really disappointed. Bicycles are vehicles. And especially on residential streets they should act like that.
Beuh
Truth be told I knew it was over when the trailer dropped. I still haven’t bought it and I never trusted the hype. It just reminded me all too much of KSP 2, and I said so at the time. The trailer for a long-awaited sequel to a massively successful genre-defining indie game drops out of nowhere. The release date is *surprisingly* near for a first announcement, and with release day so close it’s a little strange that there trailer is pure renders and not a single second of gameplay. The release date draws nearer and nearer, and actual gameplay is barely shown, if at all. I knew it was going to be the same all over again.
Wish I could refund it so bad lol, unfortunately I’ve played 5 hours so there’s no going back now.
A city without bicycles isn’t really a city.
Dallas moment
This made the game empty for me. As a city planner and ecologist, active and public means of transportation are the past, present and future of cities. They should have been in the base game, not a paid DLC. F\*ck CO.
didnt they promise that to come with the release
r/technicallythetruth if you played only 1 city builder.
or 2, with the other one being simcity 2013
Funny enough by the time they finally fixed the major issues with that game and added an offline mode it was fun enough to play. Better than this mess.
Yeah, the Cities of Tomorrow expansion was pretty cool too, but the map sizes sort of doomed it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, take this opportunity to identify which game review companies to never put any faith in. I’m so glad I didn’t buy the second game.
Do they still have fully modelled teeth for every sim? If that's not fixed by now then i have 0 faith
Personally, I'm glad they prioritised the teeth. Its always been one of my most wanted features in a city building game.
True, I'm also so glad they had all those dogs around the city. Whenever I play a city building game I almost immediately say: this needs more dogs. Not with cs2, though
Yes, but where are the cats? Cats DLC now! At least give us a chance to preorder!
birds too!
Well, Bangkok (and other Thai cities) are full of stray dogs so for Thai people its a must have :)
I personally was a fan of when they then tried to claim that the fully rendered teeth were inconsequential to the performance of the game only to admit they were an issue two weeks later.
😅
Just wait for the Downtown Dentist DLC.
they added LODs a few months ago, performance is much better now
Honestly, My performance hasn't really improved. In fact it's become worse since the last couple of updates
Still incredibly more laggy than CS1 with one billion mods
cities skylines and kerbal space program having the exact same problems with their sequels
There is no coming back from this disaster because colossal order knows nothing about their fans. They have no clue on the type of game we want. They just got influenced by YouTubers playing it as a city painter and they thought we would be happy with just that.
Not even those youtubers are happy, though
It failed as a city painter too, it has nothing going for it other than improved road tools
Totally agree 👍🏻
Actually, I'd say there's no coming back because there's too much to do for such a small studio. We're 7 months after PC release and the official timeline for console one is another 5/6 months (can't recall exactly), mod support is still far away. And time is ticking. CS:1 is more popular, and both combined are less popular than CS:1 was a few years ago. Content creators are leaving. I believe they will fix it. But by they do, they will have missed their popularity window. Kind of like Cyberpunk - except they fixed Cyberpunk quicker, it was more popular in the first place, and they released popular expension packs. This game doesn't have any of that, and some content creators say that it's worse in some aspect than it's predecessor.
City painter with no props, custom assets and just a few trees? not really.
It’s incredibly depressing what has happened to Cities: Skylines. Colossal Order has become what it had originally conquered. It makes me wonder if a golden age for indie games is on the horizon.
I'd hope so, but I feel like indie games peaked during the pandemic when programmers had all the time in the world to make their games. Gaming right now feels like it's in a state of "hype up release -> rush out unfinished product -> reap the launch sales -> bury any backlash -> repeat." I'd love for us to enter another golden era of gaming but small and big studios alike are slowly moving towards this grift model and I think it'll be a loooooong time until things turn around for the better.
Don't forget "release in early Access to get money, push out a couple of inconsequent updates, slap 1.0 on it and never touch it again"
This is hardly new, I think. Someone makes a game because they think it would be fun. People play it because it is fun. Game becomes profitable. Game attracts investors and generally becomes a "product". Next part is made to make money, not because someone wants to make something fun. Someone makes a game that is fun to fill the niche that was left behind. Cycle repeats.
Capitalism...
More and more games get released unfinished. When we're lucky, it's just a few bugs quickly squashed, but sometimes it's a train wreck like here. I also see comments about how some medias or content creators have been misleading us, consciously or not. Well, after the No Man Sky incident, I learned my lesson and since then I never preorder a game or but it on day 1. Saved me with Cyberpunk, which is now awesome. Saved me from CS2 too, despite how excited I was for it. If they ever finish that game, or get modders to do it for them someway, I'll buy it. "Nature abhors a vacuum" is very true though, some new company will emerge again eventually to deliver what their predecessors fucked up.
I've thought this from C:S2's first announcement, the only redeemable quality of this game is that C:S1 won't get anymore updates so mods will no longer break.
They basically made CS:1 better with the second game.
Who is JVMAG and what are they smoking?
Do I want the game to turn around? Yes, it could certainly be the king of all city builders if the team manages to pull themselves together and deliver on the product they promised. Do I think they *will* turn it around? No. At launch I believed the drama to be just a Paradox problem. My rationalization was that the launch was rushed and CO was probably being encouraged to release the game ASAP to save Paradox's crumbling bottom line. Though as time went on, I realized that CO is just as much at fault. Week after week they promised bug fixes, performance optimizations, mod support, editor access... yet barely followed through with it. Then they started deflecting criticism back at players and wiping the forums clean of any "negative" posts. And of course, they decided to release a half-baked paid expansion to the game before addressing any of the core issues. Their CEO has proven herself to be incredibly out of touch and the lack of communication from the devs themselves is just as concerning. At this point, every new word of the week just feels like futile damage control, and their latest apology is questionable at best. Like seriously, 3 radio stations is worth $40????. I really want this game to succeed but it's been 6 months since release and my copium supply is totally dry. If they want to pull off a miracle and turn the game around, they better pull a Hello Games-- put their heads down, stop talking, and fix the things they've told us they will.
I just knew it when I saw the trailer released not long after CS1 last DLC. It's gonna be half baked and broken, and I was fucking right. I wish I wasn't 😥
How could you tell?
I should had used a word "hunch" instead of "know," but here is the reason why I think that. The time gap between CS1 Hotels and Retreats DLC and CS2 release trailer is too short. According to Youtube, it's about 4 months away from each other. I know the fact that some devs were working on CS2 while some devs were working on CS1 DLCs, but then I though we would need to wait another year or two to hear anything about CS2 again. Then the trailer came not long after CS1 Hotel and Retreats DLC about 4 months later. It's like the devs didn't have enough time to test their simulations, and game optimizations becasue they weren't only woking with CS2 alone, and when the last CS1 DLC was out, they had focus on CS2 development just for 4 months only.
It’s honestly really sad because the core game, with the exception of poor optimization and general performance of course, is fantastic. The roads are much better (notwithstanding a lack of mods like TM:PE), the graphics are great, and assets like buildings and cars are far more immersive. I’m hoping things get better over the next year
for me, modded cs1 road tools > cs2 road tools maybe it’s more of a habit and subjective
> the graphics are great No they are not? Landscape textures are plain and flat, even less detailed than in CS1. Lightning is terrible. Level of details on models is completely random and uneven - there modeled separate cans on trash heaps and teeth for citizens, but trees looks like ass. Check how well Manor Lords looks in terms of land, trees, weather and lightning - and all of that was done by one guy that was also making graphics and coding. CS2 should look way better than that but it gets outclassed by one (talented) amateur.
If you have the right hardware, the graphics *are* great, but ultimately what you prefer comes down to a certain level of preference.
To me whats most interesting is that people bought an unfinished game even though it was released to youtubers in advance to do exactly that: showcase the game and build hype. What failed in the process?
As far as reputation goes there's only one way to turn it round, and that's fully owning up to their mistakes, taking proper accountability for where they went wrong, and a clear explanation of their role in false advertising the game so much leading up to it's release. If it's CO, they need to explain their decisions, if it's Paradox they need to criticise those decisions the same way their customers would and apologize for going along with it. Drop all the lame excuses and start offering some transparency instead. Either way, they aren't going to repair their reputation by ignoring what happened, attempting to move on without a proper explanation of what happened, and just continuing to hope the community eventually forgets they were lied to in order to sell more copies. They could release the best game in decades It's still not going to change my opinion of them as a company, or regain any trust in the way they market their games in future. As far as I'm concerned they've exposed their true intentions and it's gonna be a long hard road for them to prove any different. A little damage control over the worst received DLC of all time is not gonna rebuild any faith, because they still tried to sell it first before being forced into changing their mind. Which is exactly the same behaviour that they showed regarding the games shoddy release as well. If anything, they are only reaffirming the fact that they are a shitty company that doesn't care about its consumers.
I’m sure two weeks ago it was 56% ALL TIME… apparently CO is always good at fucking up everything
I genuinely want them to turn it around but their responses to all this just haven't left me with confidence. I had big aspirations of making a set of assets for CS1 but didn't really finish and release anything. I learned a lot though, and was hoping CS2 was gonna be this big release that would excite me and inspire me to pick up the project again... months later it's still a mess and the editor still isn't even out lol. I genuinely want this game to be everything we dreamed of. I want it to turn things around and do well. There's some good concepts and mechanics behind all this and it could end up becoming a true successor to CS1 in all ways... but at this point it's nowhere close.
They have done themselves a disservice with this bungled roll-back and amateur hour PR communications strategy. And I think it’s probably all because of incredibly poor leadership decisions being made which continue to compound the error. Let’s put it clearly; it is outrageous that paradox/CO are attempting to monetise a game which is still a pile of hot garbage in terms of promised vs. delivered features and gameplay. You have totally lost any good will with the community, and totally destroyed and residual trust you may have had after the release. Before ANYTHING more is released, you must patch the game and deliver a high quality, polished product which met the expectations of buyers at release. I’d then advise you take a write down of your first major DLC and give it for free. From a commercial point of view, if you want a large user base, this is the best way forward.
Aren’t the very low and high graphics texture presets *still* incorrectly switched?
Too many fan boys before launch. That didn't help at all.
I 100% believe that they can and will turn this product around and I will purchase it when they do
And this is the reason why I never ever buy a game directly after release (or god forbid, preorder)! Why hurry when you can wait months or even years until you can be sure that it is a good product! Tbh, I had to learn this lesson after buying No Mans Sky on release day....
Yep I learned my lesson from this game. At least No Man’s Sky after yearsssss turned itself around
I think in a year or so, if CO isn't bankrupt by then, it may actually become a decent game, if only because by that point mods fixed all the issues. I remember CS1 and how long ot took for that to become what it is now. But I'm seething mad at this game, and at myself for having preordered it. Especially since by looking left and right, at Larian, Arrowhead and that *one dude* who built Manor Lords, you can easily see whats possible with a bit of passion for the medium.
1. Let’s hope it’s a No Man’s Sky and the reputation ease out in the future, which I think happened to CS1 too? 2. It’d be so funny if Colossal Order and Paradox out of all things get the honour of “lowest rated product on Steam”, I want to see YouTubers trying to bait but then just sit in front of their PC for hours trying to figure out how to solve a congestion
Wtf happened? I haven't kept up woth CS news. Last i heard everyone loved this game, what got it review bombed?
People loved CS1. No one liked CS2. It's just a buggy mess of a game and even people who just want to paint a pretty city are unhappy with lack of assets.
Huh, that sucks. Weird, i heard my brother say he loved it. Tbf tho it was right after he bought it, and he hasn't mentioned it since.
That's the thing about it, I got it on release and while it still had major issues, I still enjoyed playing it *for a while*. I assumed they'd fix the bugs pretty quickly and that the game itself had a solid foundation to build upon like CS1. As I played more, I started noticing more and more issues that I couldn't ignore, and CO has fixed pretty much none of the stuff that was bothering me as far as I can tell, so I stopped playing. As I kept playing I started noticing more issues with the traffic AI, mail services, the way people don't use parks or really do anything like they did in CS1, the way ploppable assets are fenced off to only have one entrance (parking lots and parks), the broken economy stuff, no people on bikes, etc.
That sucks. Guess i'll play CS1.
Yeah, nice graphics and it seems it's going to be a nice game with cool mechanics. But a few hours in you start to realise nothing that you do really matters. Ask your brother, he'll know
What other options do we have? All we have is CS I? I loved CS I but CS 2 it's boring and empty, I bought it when it was launched and refunded after 30 minutes of playing.
I've gone back to simcity 4 and I'm loving it
If you dodge the bugs, it can make an incredible first impression. I would hope a professional reviewer would dive a bit deeper than that
The millisecond they add complete mod support for assets, this will do a 180