We have been busy little bees working on something completely new for Cities: Skylines and now we finally get to talk about it!

Cities: Skylines Snowfall is inspired by the Finnish winter that just seems to last forever. It's all about what we see and feel around us: Snow, ice and cold weather. You get to experience the snowfall, so make sure your citizens stay warm by offering heating, and tackling the challenges of slippery roads slowing down traffic.

People have been asking us to add seasons to the game. However we felt that winter should have it's own theme with unique challenges. This means that winter maps have eternal snow and new features tied to it. You can create your own winter maps in the map editor or play the three maps that are available in Snowfall.

The snow is naturally a very visual feature and we have created quite a few new buildings for the theme. Many of the base game buildings have been varied to fit winter conditions better, so you won’t have flowerbeds or palm trees in your winter wonderland. For modders we'll have more information how to prepare their assets for the snow coming later, but what we can say at this point is that the snow is generated by code and the assets should work with minor tweaks. Roads are also covered by snow and citizens wear winter clothing. Just like in European maps, winter maps have special buildings only available in them. We have also added some weather effects for all the other map themes.

Not only is the winter map about the visuals but there are special services that are available only in this theme. So make sure you clear the roads of the snow and heat up the citizen's home because the temperature is dropping. We'll be talking about these new features and more in a weekly developer diary until the release, so stay tuned!

Are you ready for a gorgeous winter wonderland?

 

[CaptRobau]

I'd suggest focusing more on a single well developed feature per DLC.

[...]

Paradox generally makes DLC set to themes. So for Skylines what could have been done is made some weather/night day mod that had really well done night and day, cool weather effects and even seasons, and some actual gameplay mechancis that go along with it all. Then as another DLC, have a "transit and transport" themed DLC. Bike lanes, trams, better control over transit, maybe a road-designer.

I agree. By having the expansion truly be focused on a single thing, you make it more suited for those who only like certain play styles (good example is the CK2 republican and EU4 colonial DLC) and it makes it easier to ensure quality. For After Dark you focused on tourism, budgets, bicycles, rush hours and more. Half of those things didn't turn out all to well, so having such a wide focus is clearly detrimental. Had you focused on only one set, as Baro suggests, it would've felt much more coherent and you could've done much more.

Second, have DLC shake things up a bit. It's super cool that you want to ensure compatibility between all versions of CSL, but too much can hurt the DLC. Having the day/night cycle be universal was a great choice, but having the criminal system be universal was not. Prisons have no function in the AD, because the police stations-only system of pre-AD was kept intact. As such I never build prisons because of this. People don't want to live near them and they have no function, because police stations are a prison light with additional benefits. You should've made it so that crime behaved just a bit differently, making prisons a good choice at a certain point in a city's life cycle. The only impact that would've had would that non-AD cities that people downloaded would have some crime problems.

Third, make sure most people are happy about the state of the game before you move on. AD wasn't universally liked and while you did inquire from the community what needed to be fixed, you didn't follow up on that. Much of CSLs/ADs lesser features can be fixed through rebalancing/tweaks (as the feedback on the inquiry showed), so no doubt you're working on a patch to fix that. Had you explained more about your plans for a patch before or combined with the Snowfall announcement, then the backlash would be much lighter even with the same feature list for Snowfall.

Don't ignore the criticism or leave it too unaddressed. Learn from these experiences and everything will come out rosy in the end.

 

[slimpig-porkune]

Don't ignore the criticism or leave it too unaddressed. Learn from these experiences and everything will come out rosy in the end.

Man, with all these mixed feedback that the community gave, it seems to me that the patch notes will be doubled or, if not, tripled before the release date.

 

[Tvarog]

Fully agree.

I agree. By having the expansion truly be focused on a single thing, you make it more suited for those who only like certain play styles (good example is the CK2 republican and EU4 colonial DLC) and it makes it easier to ensure quality. For After Dark you focused on tourism, budgets, bicycles, rush hours and more. Half of those things didn't turn out all to well, so having such a wide focus is clearly detrimental. Had you focused on only one set, as Baro suggests, it would've felt much more coherent and you could've done much more.

I would love to have bikes, bus station and trams (for sure - even if they work like trolleybus) but i probably will never use super specializations, some ploppable waterfront parks or fishing piers, i will probably never play on winter map, i like winter but only during Christmas.

Third, make sure most people are happy about the state of the game before you move on. AD wasn't universally liked and while you did inquire from the community what needed to be fixed, you didn't follow up on that. Much of CSLs/ADs lesser features can be fixed through rebalancing/tweaks (as the feedback on the inquiry showed), so no doubt you're working on a patch to fix that. Had you explained more about your plans for a patch before or combined with the Snowfall announcement, then the backlash would be much lighter even with the same feature list for Snowfall.

Don't ignore the criticism or leave it too unaddressed. Learn from these experiences and everything will come out rosy in the end.

Most people will never be happy about stte of the game, but U're right more responding, even this meaningless should really help.

 

[Chief of Staff]

It's ok to not do something if you can't do it right. If implementing seasons on existing maps is too much work, don't do it, invest your time into something else you can do a good job on. Permanent-winter maps with their own stock of buildings doesn't really sound like the best solution.

I'd suggest focusing more on a single well developed feature per DLC. I only bought afterdark for bike lanes, and even that was a very lightly developed feature. The commercial specializations do nothing, and the day/night lighting is ok, but buildings light up during the day in a way that looks very strange. And what do bike lanes have to do with night and day?

Paradox generally makes DLC set to themes. So for Skylines what could have been done is made some weather/night day mod that had really well done night and day, cool weather effects and even seasons, and some actual gameplay mechancis that go along with it all. Then as another DLC, have a "transit and transport" themed DLC. Bike lanes, trams, better control over transit, maybe a road-designer.

I don't know if the strategy is to always hide one sort of cool feature in a pile of fluff to hope people buy every DLC, but that's not the paradox model, and I think eventually people will just start passing up the DLC. "I don't want to have to buy 5 pieces of DLC just to get a single feature from each one". Let people buy DLC that focuses on certain things so they can buy the ones they want (say transit stuff) and ignore things they don't care about (weather, night/day). This lets you specialize your DLC and really focus on getting each thing right, and lets the players be very happy with their purchases, not feel like they had to buy 5 things they don't care about to get 1 thing they want.

Well said.

 

[Tuscan]

Those winter cities do look beautiful I give you that, but if I am to be perfectly honest I think choosing to go down the static winter theme route rather than having dynamic seasons and weather on existing maps is a mistake.

Building a city in a continuous winter wonderland will be great for the first few hours, but the novelty would wear off pretty fast. Having changing seasons on the other hand would really make the environment come to life and keep the player interested. Tying changing seasons and weather into the gameplay could have also added a whole new layer of depth. Missed opportunity

 

[mikeny]

If we'd let negative comments get to us we wouldn't be making games. People who play Cities: Skylines are generally polite and know how to give constructive feedback that we can take on board for the future.



All four season cycle would have to be quite long for it to make any sense having different services in different seasons. Four seasons is much more work than working on one, and we didn't want to spend a year developing a feature that would in fact be in the end mostly cosmetic. So adding a winter theme + rain to other themes made more sense to us and allowed us to have something non-weather features in this expansion as well.

There will always be haters. Look how quickly some forget that this is the SimCity we were looking for I'm grateful you guys made such a deep simulator.

This new expansion, it will only be available on only the snow maps? Would we be able to make ski resorts?

Will it be available to the other maps eventually? Or even one map; perhaps Boreal?

I'm still wishing for toll booths, subways, subway transfer stations, and subway lines a la Cities in Motion

Keep up the good work!

 

[Kain2K]

There will always be haters. Look how quickly some forget that this is the SimCity we were looking for I'm grateful you guys made such a deep simulator.

It's not that we forgot. We want to keep it that way. That's why we criticize this decision.
The way it goes at the moment CO is making the exact same mistakes Maxis did with SC13, with the only difference being that CO at least created a good base game. Honestly, AD had its features implemented very poorly due to some very questionable design choices. Enabling snow only on a single map theme is making the same mistake all over again.
CO has an excellent reputation thanks to vanilla, but they are driving their car with 180 km/h against the wall. All we do is warn them, not because we want to antagonize them, but to help them avoiding this wall, to help them avoid the crash, because we know that they made the SimCity we all wanted. We all appreciate what they made. But this is what makes it so sad. To see how they make those poor design choices while they could have been avoided so easily. With the european map theme they made the exact same mistake they are going to do with Snowfall. With the difference that the EU map theme thing could be corrected. To do the same with Snowfall will be difficult, if there even is a way to correct it post-release.

What I want to say is, we aren't critisizing because we do not like CSL. We are doing it because we love it.

 

[Spec. Tater]

Looking forward to a "Desert Biome Mod" that reskins the snow into sandstorms.

Or Mars!
Or Fury Road!

 

[Tuscan]

There will always be haters. Look how quickly some forget that this is the SimCity we were looking for I'm grateful you guys made such a deep simulator.

Most people here are not "haters", they just want to see the game continue to succeed and improve.

 

[Synthtronic]

It's not that we forgot. We want to keep it that way. That's why we criticize this decision.
The way it goes at the moment CO is making the exact same mistakes Maxis did with SC13, with the only difference being that CO at least created a good base game. Honestly, AD had its features implemented very poorly due to some very questionable design choices. Enabling snow only on a single map theme is making the same mistake all over again.
CO has an excellent reputation thanks to vanilla, but they are driving their car with 180 km/h against the wall. All we do is warn them, not because we want to antagonize them, but to help them avoiding this wall, to help them avoid the crash, because we know that they made the SimCity we all wanted. We all appreciate what they made. But this is what makes it so sad. To see how they make those poor design choices while they could have been avoided so easily. With the european map theme they made the exact same mistake they are going to do with Snowfall. With the difference that the EU map theme thing could be corrected. To do the same with Snowfall will be difficult, if there even is a way to correct it post-release.

What I want to say is, we aren't critisizing because we do not like CSL. We are doing it because we love it.

I totally agree with you. I can't say it better.
Why the tram is placed in this snowfall-DLC, is completely inexplicable to me.
Better you give this feature to an transport+logistic-DLC.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Eternal winter..! The mere thought makes me *shudder* to the core! Why would a Finnish team ever make such a horrific torture? Won't someone please think of the poor cims who will suffer from a terminal depression? Will there be a suicide statistic in the game, which will go up as the temperature plunges?

This alone is a good enough reason to implement full seasons. Please don't make the poor cims suffer!

 

[upuu]

Paid or unpaid, because I have some cash monies in my wallet just for you CO

 

[Severon]

Oh yeh! I can't wait for this!! No other City Sim that I've played has attempted seasons or weather. Looking forward to this!

 

[nuclearmissile]

There will always be haters. Look how quickly some forget that this is the SimCity we were looking for I'm grateful you guys made such a deep simulator.

"Deep simulator" lol. Please open your eyes and take a look at how game mechanics are implemented. Here's a detailed explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gaming4Gam...cities_skylines_after_dark_expansion_pack_is/

I'm still wishing for toll booths, subways, subway transfer stations, and subway lines a la Cities in Motion

I don't disagree with this, more options are good, but the game is supposed to be a city management simulator not traffic sim. So far the management side is rather weak...we spend more time dealing with traffic than everything else...

 

[Langolier]

This game is like a stereotypical super model.. sure she looks pretty, but she lacks substance and smarts.

After over 500 hrs of play this game has run its course for me. It now feels messy (especially because of all of the mods I have to subscribe to now) and shallow which in turn has made it somewhat boring. I "play" now and then just to watch the simulation run as it is very appealing visually but soon grow tired as there is nothing to solve except for the occasional traffic jam (Cities Skylines: Traffic Simulator). At times I still beautify with trees, add stadiums, parks, zone entertainment districts etc. but grow discouraged as it feels there is no reward for doing so. What's the point in planting my stadium asset (which requires a fricking mod just to increase the footprint so I can place it) if no sports will be played and no cims will visit?

This DLC, like after dark, will not add anything in terms of depth but will add more visual appeal and maybe 20 hours of playing with trams. None of the essential user made modifications will be implemented into the base game which is frustrating as this game is cumbersome and frankly unplayable without them.

Not to say I haven't had fun with this game, I loved it for a long time, but it has always felt like a stepping stone to an even better game 10 years down the track. CO have the simulation down fairly good, but it lacks the depth that even EA's latest SimCity accomplished.

I say this as a friend and I look forward to seeing what this team will achieve in 10 years when I'm 39

 

[paxetgratia]

All four season cycle would have to be quite long for it to make any sense having different services in different seasons. Four seasons is much more work than working on one, and we didn't want to spend a year developing a feature that would in fact be in the end mostly cosmetic. So adding a winter theme + rain to other themes made more sense to us and allowed us to have something non-weather features in this expansion as well.

At first, i slightly disappointed at "just winter and rain" but not four seasons. But now i could understand why developers decided like this. I heard "Colosal Order" has only about 10~20 employees, and i think i would make similar decisions if i were in.
And it's just first and one dev diary, Isn't it better to cheer them up to make more gorgeous game?

 

[Kain2K]

At first, i slightly disappointed at "just winter and rain" but not four seasons. But now i could understand why developers decided like this. I heard "Colosal Order" has only about 10~20 employees, and i think i would make similar decisions if i were in.
And it's just first and one dev diary, Isn't it better to cheer them up to make more gorgeous game?

I disagree. A small team does not justify this decision. There are many games that give us so much more in terms of depth that were developed by a much smaller team. Like someone already wrote. This game needs more to do. It is just a city painter. All you can do is paint a nice city. There is just no difficulty in creating a city from scratch. If I think back to SC4 or even to SC3K, I really can't count how often I had to start from scratch because I made a stupid mistake.
On the otherside I only need one finger to count the times I had to restart a CSL game. Once you have the basic buildings. there is practically no way to lose except if you are a monkey or just plain stupid. CSL is the only game that I know in which it is far harder to achieve achievements for failures than for successes.
Once you have the basic buildings all you do is painting more RCI and Roads and solving the occasional traffic problem. What we need are more features that are available on every map and not some eye candy and new features that are bound to a new map theme.
And what this game sorely needs are features that actually mean something, and of course solving the myriad of issues AD brought that CO did not solve yet.

 

[Co_Karoliina]

Thanks for all the comments, I see we have quite a discussion going on here! This is just the first dev diary, so I will be going into details on the content later. I'm hoping the information coming later will change some minds, but sadly it is impossible to make a DLC that pleases everyone. The free update will give everyone some new content, and I have to say the rain looks super nice.

I would ask you to please be patient! The expansion is much more than just winter visual theme, and more info on the functionality is coming.

We looked into seasons, but that would be something that completely changes how the game plays. Very long cycles make shorter game sessions unsatisfying and having to switch different services on and off with the seasons feels a bit like whack-a-mole, which also is quite unrewarding. Going with the map theme logic for winter seemed like the best choice for Skylines, so that the basic concept of the game does not change (because some people like it as it is, and it would not be nice to go change the game drastically) but we rather build on the existing logic and expand things on the existing saves carefully, so no ones grand city is ruined. I assure you, not making seasons for existing saves was not a decision made lightly, but it has been carefully investigated.

 

[Kain2K]

We looked into seasons, but that would be something that completely changes how the game plays. Very long cycles make shorter game sessions unsatisfying and having to switch different services on and off with the seasons feels a bit like whack-a-mole, which also is quite unrewarding. Going with the map theme logic for winter seemed like the best choice for Skylines, so that the basic concept of the game does not change (because some people like it as it is, and it would not be nice to go change the game drastically) but we rather build on the existing logic and expand things on the existing saves carefully, so no ones grand city is ruined. I assure you, not making seasons for existing saves was not a decision made lightly, but it has been carefully investigated.

You could have combined seasonal services. Like having a service that waters greenery during spring and summer, in autumn they rake leaves and during winter they clear the roads from snow. This way we would not need to play whack-a-mole, we would have seasons and different new services.

I really do not know how others see it, but I rather would have only visual seasons without special gameplay elements than a special map theme with special gameplay. Experience has shown that if you integrate a new gamemode with special rules in an existing game, this mode often will not be much used and therefore will not be expanded in a way that makes it interesting.

In this special case my concern is that you waste your time (and we our money) on a mode that will be neglected in the future. I think what you are not realising is that if you include this new snow-gamemode you won't be able to expand it in the future, since not everyone would have the expansion, but every new expansion that builds upon the foundation of snowfall would automatically need snowfall as a base. This is a one-way-road, or better a dead end you're developing here. You will never be able to expand the special gameplay of snow-maps after the release of snowfall, at least not with a DLC that costs money. I really think that the best policy of DLC development in this early stage of CSLs life cycle, would be to further expand the foundation you have laid with vanilla and AD rather than to develop a feature that obviously leads into a dead end.

So I really do hope you took this into consideration when you made the decision of your implementation of snow themed maps.

 

[Disclaimer]

Thanks for all the comments, I see we have quite a discussion going on here! This is just the first dev diary, so I will be going into details on the content later. I'm hoping the information coming later will change some minds, but sadly it is impossible to make a DLC that pleases everyone. The free update will give everyone some new content, and I have to say the rain looks super nice.

I would ask you to please be patient! The expansion is much more than just winter visual theme, and more info on the functionality is coming.

We looked into seasons, but that would be something that completely changes how the game plays. Very long cycles make shorter game sessions unsatisfying and having to switch different services on and off with the seasons feels a bit like whack-a-mole, which also is quite unrewarding. Going with the map theme logic for winter seemed like the best choice for Skylines, so that the basic concept of the game does not change (because some people like it as it is, and it would not be nice to go change the game drastically) but we rather build on the existing logic and expand things on the existing saves carefully, so no ones grand city is ruined. I assure you, not making seasons for existing saves was not a decision made lightly, but it has been carefully investigated.

It’s good to know that more info on expanded gameplay is coming. I also appreciate that you didn’t take the decision with limited snow maps lightly. But unless you have something truly great still to be revealed for Snowfall, I’ll have to agree with others saying that it’s the wrong choice for the next DLC.

Instead, do more focussed DLCs and take extra care that you get the content right from the start. Not After Dark again, with features all over the place and virtually none implemented well, apart from visual effects.

A perfect candidate for the next DLC would have been a traffic one. Trams, ferries, more public transport management options, integration of some crucial mods into the base game (like elevated train stations or more road options), hardcore traffic mode, in which all traffic matters, even that of workers to their workplace. The free patch coming with the DLC would include at least some of the fixes the community has been waiting for.

Other obvious choices for future DLCs apart from seasons include events / sports, tourism, expansion of the social policy / wealth side of cims (social policies, different income levels, different neighbourhoods based on wealth, real challenges for poverty alleviation etc.), expansion of economic model, for example deeper simulation of trade, production, agriculture.

That alone should provide material for the next 2 years. When done well and giving your pricing that would mean you could keep generating pretty high revenues from Skylines for the next 2 years, create a truly epic game in the process, which in turn will pretty much guarantee that Skylines 2, when it will come, will be a massive hit as well. So please don’t give in to the dark & easy side and milk your earlier success by throwing out half-finished, money-grabbing DLCs like After Dark and (as it appears now) Snowfall.