CO Word of the Week #15

[Lys91]

es the Unity engine, which is basically .NET. You can decompile code mods and check for obvious problems (usage of HttpClient comes to mind). Is that 100% safe? Of course not. But you can always put up a disclaimer, that running mods is at your own risk.

The problem is not with Steam or PDX. Is that right now, when you use Thunderstorm, you have unofficially supported mods that, to the best of my knowledge, run with zero restriction on what they can do. That is the third-party aspect; you run code with no restriction from some random person on the internet. Proper mods that are distributed by Steam (or PDXMod) belong to games with official mod support that do restrict what a mod can do (a major reason being security). You still run code from some random person on the internet, but the game limits what sort of actions the code can perform on your machine (or the mod consist of script that are interpreted by the game engine, or only asset etc. depending on the game). This is something that needs to be inside the game; it is not part of Steam (or PDXMod).

If there is no mod support, it is because the GAME does not have anything to run mods properly. So yes you can hack things and get unofficial mods, but that's the case for any game that ever existed. If you don't have official mods, it is not because PDXMod does not work. At the end of the day, all that Steam Workshop does is synchronize files in a folder with an online repository. PDX can build that. I have no doubt they can deliver a substandard UI or a bad search functionality or all sorts of bad UX experience, but the basic aspect of a mod platform they can deliver. Honestly, I don't think the problem is with PDXMod. If you read all the WotW, the problem is consistently about the game loading the content and providing tools to modder. This is from CO own communication. The problem is entirely on CO side.

CO keeps making snide remarks at the community and PDX to not take responsibility. I am very disappointed by CO, but this has been their MO for a while now.

 

[JXL23]

If you want to regain credibility and improve reviews and sales, re-release the game, like Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky.

Add all the missing content, finish developing the simulation, and improve performance (vastly). And complete this by giving away some DLCs.

Only then will people buy the paid DLCs you have planned.

 

[jrdndaniels]

[Whatever vacuosly positive thing I need to say to not get austracized]

 

[Polarisan]

I've had to revive my old paradox forums account to comment on these issues. I think I own pretty much the majority of the games that paradox has published/made to great honor, and if something has pushed me away from paradox plaza was the emergence of steam, discord and other places where you could discuss most of what goes on in the gaming world. On a new internet where everything is based on an algorithm having to crawl back to the forums has been a nice change of pace.

I wish it were under better circumstances, to be honest. I was extremely psyched, happy and overall enthused for CSII and I've been let down time and time again since release. I confess I must have learned by now that games here are released and later fixed but this was beyond early access. Since optimization is generally the last step of the process of making a game it's no wonder it doesn't run at all, this game was clearly lacking around 2 years in development.


Hopefully, CO will now learn from this, if they even do continue existing and don't go out in a blaze of hate like Maxis did at the end, but everything that has been said over the word of the week just tells me that they've decided to double down on the wrong issues, which have been outlined here and on every word of the week since release, focusing on what's been pushed down from above instead of the issues that paying customers have with the game.

What we have here is a game that's already been sold to us, meaning that we don't matter anymore since we've already funded the development as far as we will logically go. The next step is console release to farm as much there as possible.

Modding at this point is useless since at this rate the game will be modded by ghosts, which is why I believe that this course will be corrected by the end of Q2 when they realize that.

I just hope that refunds are allowed to restore some goodwill with the community, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Potoroo]

I really dont understand why CO can't put out some hotfixes (i.e. Dogs/ Land value) that modders have already solved. It would show some progress on CO's end, and maybe restore some faith in the playerbase.
Why this stubborn we-release-patches-with-dlc attitude?

This doesn’t mean that we never patch the game between the DLC releases. The goal is to improve the game as quickly as possible and when we have a solid patch ready and tested it will be released.

Official patches are more time consuming than modding, not least because modders don't have to do regression testing. The idea that CO can just grab some modder's "fix" and chuck it in the game is beyond naive.

 

[Potoroo]

So apparently a pretty similar situation happened more or less 10 years ago with Cities in Motion. But have a read yourself:

forum threads i-feel-betrayed.816972

Looks like no links are allowed here, but just paste this into your search bar as it's also a thread in this Paradox forum. Spaces are /

Lessons learned from that time? Not sure though. Not sure if I need to think this was all calculated and purposefully done after reading the other thread.

These forums have a minimum number of posts requirement before allowing URLs, to stop brand new accounts being created to spam the forums.

The link in question is https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/i-feel-betrayed.816972.

 

[Catpoint789]

Y'know, I still had hope. The past couple WOW's have been decent enough to keep me hoping that you do actually just have some hurdles to get past and then CS2 will thrive, but... when you fall back onto posts like this where it's just a wall of nothing concrete, it makes me really think for the first time that this game might truly be doomed. I expected SOMETHING to reference the modding platform being ready for the end of March since it's already about halfway through the month, but I guess not. You're even still having issues with asset modding and, as far as we can tell, you're at the same spot you were weeks ago and who knows if the problems will be solved. I hope you do better next week. I hope you do better in the following months. But like I said: hope's running out on my end.

 

[YYS-Etsu]

I really don't get it, what exactly have you been doing all this time? You're always playing the victim, constantly using fancy presentations to mask the fact that you've made no progress. You've been marking time for months. When you first launched CS1, at least steam workshop salvaged your inefficiency and incompetence. But now, your reluctance to release Editor is single-handedly squandering the potential for asset creators to invigorate the gaming community. Let me be blunt, you don't deserve to continuously receive encouragement and praise from players; instead, you should feel ashamed for collecting salaries without delivering results.

 

[RuralConurbation]

These forums have a minimum number of posts requirement before allowing URLs, to stop brand new accounts being created to spam the forums.

The link in question is https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/i-feel-betrayed.816972.

I find the contents of this link quite enlightening and a confirmation of tactics which have been adopted by the same provider something like ten years ago. One of the take away comments is that ongoing purchases (DLC's etc) are likely funding development of new games and not fixing content of existing ones. Another is an assessment of what is involved in modifying simulation code and why there is probably a reluctance to massively change it. The latter does not give a warm feeling about significant simulation performance optimisation.

 

[Ne0Que]

I just can't believe what I'm reading here. It's just the same riddle from 7 months ago: "We are working on modding, and with a closed group of testers". It is exactly the same text from 7 months ago. This game needs NEW content ASAP.

Hey! What about just hiring the modders for 2 years.. they seem to be doing a better job in less time, for less money.

The 'small team' excuse is a non-excuse when you made over hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade. There are enough resources to expand team, Even temporarily.

 

[ClemiMD]

Hey! What about just hiring the modders for 2 years.. they seem to be doing a better job in less time, for less money.

Modding is the one thing, patching the whole game is quite different.

I like the McDonald's analogy (thanks to @ArtPTarkovsky):
Modding is like someone mixing up a special sauce for McDonald's chicken nuggets and sharing his recipe so that anyone who wants to can dip their nuggets in that sauce.
Patching the game, however, means that McDonald's takes this new sauce and offers it in its restaurants worldwide, including the necessary product testing, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and so on.

 

[Ne0Que]

Modding is the one thing, patching the whole game is quite different.

I like the McDonald's analogy (thanks to @ArtPTarkovsky):
Modding is like someone mixing up a special sauce for McDonald's chicken nuggets and sharing his recipe so that anyone who wants to can dip their nuggets in that sauce.
Patching the game, however, means that McDonald's takes this new sauce and offers it in its restaurants worldwide, including the necessary product testing, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and so on.

Actually, modding the game in this state, needs even more skills since modders have to decompile and 'learn' the game without any in-studio knowledge. Yet, they seem to succeed already with some unofficial mods.

I also want to add, modding is wide. You can mod extra content in. There are loads of people waiting to add their content to the game, something this game desperately needs.

 

[backface]

Sad to see Paradox all but cannibalize the stalwart player base of the first game in an attempt to secure a good chunk of the console market as well, by forcing their own subpar solution to a mod database that is turning out to be extremely difficult to implement, seemingly. Why couldn't it just co-exist with the Steam Workshop, which worked very well for the first game?

And then for them to take no responsibility and stay radio silent while shuffling all communication with the community onto the developer? Pretty shitty.

Don't get me wrong, there's some clear indications of a lack of proper project management on the hand of CO here, but I'm confident Paradox is mainly to blame for the issues we're up against here. They're not doing their job as publisher at all.

The problem here it's not Paradox Mod or Steam. The problem it's the editor in-game to create the assets, maps and everything, that as they have said, it's not ready and doesn't work, or it full of bugs. If they decide from the beginning to get the mods and other things (maps) on Steam Workshop, won't be available today for the same reason.

 

[Ashreon]

Official patches are more time consuming than modding, not least because modders don't have to do regression testing. The idea that CO can just grab some modder's "fix" and chuck it in the game is beyond naive.

By CO's own admission they would not have reached any reasonable result by delaying the game even further.
What makes you think they're capable of doing that now?

I'm sorry but it's just flat out wrong. CO said that they could not add individual lane control to roads, because the game couldn't support that (something to that effect). A modder pretty much introduced that in less than a month after release.

Actually, modding the game in this state, needs even more skills since modders have to decompile and 'learn' the game without any in-studio knowledge. Yet, they seem to succeed already with some unofficial mods.

I also want to add, modding is wide. You can mod extra content in. There are loads of people waiting to add their content to the game, something this game desperately needs.

Well, classes are conveniently named so that alone gives you a good hint what is going on in there or at the very least what it control. From that point on all you really need to do is decipher what happens in the class. It does take a lot longer and I am hopeful that with the code editor they will provide syntax and error handling.

 

[dan1979]

I would like to emphasize again that there is still a lot of work still to be done

Then I look forward to you completing the work and releasing the product.

Oh wait...

 

[RuralConurbation]

Then I look forward to you completing the work and releasing the product.

Oh wait...

"oh wait" .... which could be a very, very long one.

 

[DiNardo1910]

Why are the comments being ignored? Where is the Community Manager?

 

[UsmanSyed]

The problem I think is not the usual PR talk, its the twists and turns they have taken in their approach. Releasing the game then saying we thought it was ready to be shipped so we did it, no pressure from anyone. Then saying they had publisher pressure or something like that so we did it. Then giving timelines but not doing anything when they come and posting usual stuff. Then saying that publisher will make all the announcements from now on.

When you take such approach, you confuse your customers, your core fans, the main people you should care about. I think it will take at least an year when this game will reach in somewhat playable state, as for right now we only have smoke and mirrors.

 

[Potoroo]

By CO's own admission they would not have reached any reasonable result by delaying the game even further.
What makes you think they're capable of doing that now?

I'm sorry but it's just flat out wrong. CO said that they could not add individual lane control to roads, because the game couldn't support that (something to that effect). A modder pretty much introduced that in less than a month after release.

No, it's not wrong. Modders by definition don't have to put their content through the same depth of testing that the devs do. Do you even know what regression testing is? It's a time consuming process that modders typically don't do but which is essential for devs, lest their patch cause more problems than it solves. It delays patches but makes them more robust. Modders adding functionality to the game that may or may not be robust does not invalidate the devs following correct patch procedures, and the idea that the devs could or should just grab modders' untested "fixes" and chuck them into the game remains hopelessly naive. It would cause more problems than it would solve. In something as complex as a city simulator less is more when it comes to balancing.

 

[Gaseous Stranger]

Modding is the one thing, patching the whole game is quite different.

I like the McDonald's analogy (thanks to @ArtPTarkovsky):
Modding is like someone mixing up a special sauce for McDonald's chicken nuggets and sharing his recipe so that anyone who wants to can dip their nuggets in that sauce.
Patching the game, however, means that McDonald's takes this new sauce and offers it in its restaurants worldwide, including the necessary product testing, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and so on.

This is assuming they do testing, which is quite the assumption when you look at the state of the game