Today we are enjoying cake to celebrate Cities: Skylines winning the Game of the Year, Big Screen Game and Pelit-magazine's Kyöpeli award at the Finnish Game Awards. It was a fabulous night last Thursday and we have to thank all our fans, the good people at Paradox and of course my biggest thanks to the team for the hard work put into the game. And not only this, we are also nominated at the Nordic Game Awards held in May!

There can never me too much cake, or awards!

The work on Cities: Skylines continues and last week we released a small bugfixing patch. This caused some grief among mod users so I thought I'd open up our feelings about updating the game and modding in general. (The Champagne helps!)

We wanted to make the game moddable to allow modders to create new content and changes to the game. We have official modding tools, but little did we know how talented and creative the modders are! They have gone so far beyond the official API making amazing modifications to the game to our delight. There are also thousands of different assets created to enrich the look of the game. All these total to over 80 000 items in the Steam Workshop!

At the same time we at Colossal keep working on the game both creating new content and working on bugfixing and general improvements. The inevitable truth is that some mods use the same code we are modifying which causes the mods to break and possibly ruin the mod users day. It is regrettable, but on the mod user's responsibility as they have agreed to the terms of using mods. I believe it has been clearly explained how using the mods can have unforeseen consequences and therefore it requires the user to agree to the risks.

What does Colossal Order do to mitigate this annoyance of mods breaking?
We have a closed modding beta forum and early access to the upcoming updates for modders so they can test their mods against the changes made by us and fix the issues before the release of such update. If you are a modder and want access to the this beta, please PM our NewMoo community developer extraordinaire @TheLetterZ with details of the mods you are working on.
We also bundle all fixes we can with the expansions to keeping the updates as few but as significant as possible.

Why can't I use an older version of the game?
Steam forces the updates to all users and that's how we want it to be. Updates are necessary to taking the game forward and fixing issues. Handling multiple versions of the game is not feasible I'm afraid.

Can't Colossal test the mods before releasing an update?
No. The QA handles testing the update itself and testing even some of the mods on top of that would be extremely time consuming. The modders can also update their mods at any given time, so quality assurance for the mods is on the responsibility of the creator. And the ones actively working on their mods are doing a fabulous job at it!

For the next months we will be working on something more substantial so there won't be frequent updates for the time being. We are very excited about what is to come for Cities: Skylines and I hope the ones playing the vanilla game, using mods and modding the game will stick with us to see what the future holds!

Cheers,
Mariina

 

[muttonnoir]

I don't know how many times CO have to spell everything out regarding the challenges arising from the plethora of mods/assets available in the workshop. Surely anyone with a modicum of common sense would appreciate the difficulties? This is the wisdom of the crowd at work- hundreds of people pooling their creativity time talent and skill to improve the game exponentially in just over a year- way beyond what the small CO team could ever achieve. Yet their remains a stubborn core of fans who fail to appreciate that the creative process takes time and rarely comes to fruition overnight. Also any change requires management to happen smoothly- reducing risk to a minimum requires great skill and coordination- especially difficult when it involves so many stakeholders- many of whom are talented amateurs who have work and studies that must take precedence. CO do a pretty darn good job!

 

[douglasrac]

I'm one of the people that already complained about updates. I don't think CO is doing anything wrong. That is indeed the price of using some mods that modify too much the game. The problem is that the frustration of losing a saved game is huge. Its hours and hours of dedication and when you are ready to play, steam pumps an update and you never know what will happen.

Another point is that the updates come without any warning. It would be nice if 1 day or 2 days before CO says: an update will be released in 2 days. That is enough time for us to enter the saved games, remove some mods and save it without the mods. Or even to be prepared to open Steam in offline mod for a while till you say goodbye to the city.

Another point is that I tried to play without mods, but some mods are impossible to live without. Remove traffic lights for example, is simple but mandatory.

 

[metacritical]

Hey I get it! Trust needs to be earned. I shall do my best to getting these props available for everyone.

it seems perverse that those who acquire the game via unofficial sources have access to the pre-order bonuses whereas the rest of us that bought the game after the release lose out.

 

[benzoll]

Congratulations on the award.

Concerning mods, say thanks to CO by permit and encourage, and a million thanks to modders by making them.
Install mod is voluntary and without official support from CO. This is a fact. As discussed above, must not be given most laps around the issue.
We should appreciate efforts of CO to maintain and relate with modders. Game update: if no I am wrong, CO notifies at modders actives, and gives information, even the patch a few days before for testing with his mod.

As for the common request to integrate some good mods in game, CO is already doing:
Nigth and trams (if remember correctly, there were mods that made it, or at least they tried), terraformation, canals, improved transport lines interface, map-theme editor and snow, school out policy.. some by popular demand, others because CO was going to do anyway.

If it helps, a method to prevent debacle of a city by update game or mod: every 2 days, I move savegames outside of folders of game and steam, and only I leave last savegame. It has not always served me, but in 95% yes.

 

[co_martsu]

it seems perverse that those who acquire the game via unofficial sources have access to the pre-order bonuses whereas the rest of us that bought the game after the release lose out.

You mean illegal? They get all the DLCs as well if they want so I wouldn't go comparing there. Pre-order bonus is exactly that, a gift to those putting their trust to us before the release. However I am looking into the matter of getting these items available for everyone in one way or another

 

[Whitefang Greytail]

This small time modder congratulates you and the team on the well deserved award!
May you have a lot more such successes in the future and keep up the wonderful work!

I guess I could try to request access into the beta forum. Would help to know what is coming down the road, although I suppose I'm able to update quickly in most circumstances.

 

[ForceInfinity]

Incorporating mods to the game is not really something we can just do. Let's forget the point that we absolutely won't just take someone else's code and slap it in the game... But let's rather look into this from the point of an example: Traffic ++ added dynamic pathfinding for the vehicles so they change lanes on the go. The method behind it is very simple and we have had multiple requests to do the same for all the players. Unfortunately it has an impact on the performance we have been unable to resolve. Many people can use the said mod without any noticeable problems. However this is not the case for the majority of the players. We have to make sure that the game runs on promised specifications and will not start making separate versions of the game for different setups, because someone would like to have a mod in the base game.

Modders will also be faster than us and they have pretty much done everything we have wanted to. It's ok! We can keep working on things for those who for one reason or another don't use mods and keep improving the game for everyone. Modders please keep doing what you do, it's amazing!

I don't get your explanation here.

By your logic, then Cities Skylines should've released with a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 (or whatever number is needed to get to 16:9), with a fixed set of graphics options (no shadows, no AA, no nothing) that nobody can tweak so that the game can run on a minimum spec computer. But that's not what happened here. The game released such that it will run on some ancient computer with a 6 year old or more graphics card. Sure they can make the game look prettier, but they will be punished by the chugging performance. Why is AI any different?

This is something developers do all the time; include features that if employed, would have a performance impact all the time but can enhance the game experience for those who have the more powerful rigs. As mentioned before, most of the time it's with graphics settings. Sometimes you see it with physics. Even flight simulator has a setting which allows you to designate how many AI craft are in the game. So why must this game be any different? Why can't the AI settings be any different? Why not have it to where you can have Core AI (which is what we're stuck with now), Dynamic AI (with disclaimer on performance), and Advanced AI (with disclaimer that it can adversely impact performance).

If people are smart enough to get that bumping from 1024 resolution to 1920 to 4K resolution know that they're going to take a performance hit when augmenting their settings, why can you trust people with AI settings and the like?

 

[dominic2005]

I don't get your explanation here.

By your logic, then Cities Skylines should've released with a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 (or whatever number is needed to get to 16:9), with a fixed set of graphics options (no shadows, no AA, no nothing) that nobody can tweak so that the game can run on a minimum spec computer. But that's not what happened here. The game released such that it will run on some ancient computer with a 6 year old or more graphics card. Sure they can make the game look prettier, but they will be punished by the chugging performance. Why is AI any different?

This is something developers do all the time; include features that if employed, would have a performance impact all the time but can enhance the game experience for those who have the more powerful rigs. As mentioned before, most of the time it's with graphics settings. Sometimes you see it with physics. Even flight simulator has a setting which allows you to designate how many AI craft are in the game. So why must this game be any different? Why can't the AI settings be any different? Why not have it to where you can have Core AI (which is what we're stuck with now), Dynamic AI (with disclaimer on performance), and Advanced AI (with disclaimer that it can adversely impact performance).

If people are smart enough to get that bumping from 1024 resolution to 1920 to 4K resolution know that they're going to take a performance hit when augmenting their settings, why can you trust people with AI settings and the like?

I think, (I could be wrong), it's partly a legal issue. The base game was launched with a specific set of requirement, the recommended requirements don't really matter too much, but the minimum requirements do.

The game ALWAYS has to be able to run at those minimum requirements smoothly and acceptably, as that was what was advertised. If they release a patch that requires a higher minimum requirements, technically it is classed as false advertising.

The Sims series used to get around this with having a different set of requirements for each buyable expansion, so CO's option is that they can change/increase those minimum specs if the base game is ran with x expansion/addon (call them what you will).

But in order to make a change to the AI, for example, traffic, they wouldn't be able to do it via a patch, only with a purchasable expansion.

But then of course people will "complain" that they have to pay again in order to get an improved AI that "should have been in the base game" according to some quarters.


You see the conundrum CO now face?

 

[ForceInfinity]

I think, (I could be wrong), it's partly a legal issue. The base game was launched with a specific set of requirement, the recommended requirements don't really matter too much, but the minimum requirements do.

The game ALWAYS has to be able to run at those minimum requirements smoothly and acceptably, as that was what was advertised. If they release a patch that requires a higher minimum requirements, technically it is classed as false advertising.

The Sims series used to get around this with having a different set of requirements for each buyable expansion, so CO's option is that they can change/increase those minimum specs if the base game is ran with x expansion/addon (call them what you will).

But in order to make a change to the AI, for example, traffic, they wouldn't be able to do it via a patch, only with a purchasable expansion.

But then of course people will "complain" that they have to pay again in order to get an improved AI that "should have been in the base game" according to some quarters.


You see the conundrum CO now face?

Actually I don't, because the default setting for the game would be the Core AI, as I originally suggested (which is the AI that comes with the vanilla CS that was released a year ago). Nothing changes. What I'm saying they could've done is that they could've added a slider, or radio button, so that if someone was really looking for advanced AI, they had that option and could set accordingly. The minimum requirements wouldn't need modified because the base setting is for the CoreAI (which again is what we have now in the vanilla game).

 

[Darkbelg]

Have you taken a look at how Arma 3 handles mods ? Bohemia interactive has been doing this longer then you guys have so there might be something to learn.

 

[dominic2005]

Actually I don't, because the default setting for the game would be the Core AI, as I originally suggested (which is the AI that comes with the vanilla CS that was released a year ago). Nothing changes. What I'm saying they could've done is that they could've added a slider, or radio button, so that if someone was really looking for advanced AI, they had that option and could set accordingly. The minimum requirements wouldn't need modified because the base setting is for the CoreAI (which again is what we have now in the vanilla game).

It's an option...and not a bad one. Even if that element was implemented on it's own to start with, via a patch. The more advanced AI could then be worked on and added via a paid add-on. (I somehow doubt CO would commit the R&D to further advance the AI for nothing. Would be unreasonable to expect them to).

The con to this is still a performance issue. I won't say I have a fantastic PC, but certainly one that is far beyond the min and rec specs for this game. I can run it just fine with everything set at max @ 1920 ... and I've found adding a more advanced AI, such as the various traffic mods, DOES have a negative impact on performance. I know there are a few that claim it doesn't but the simple fact is it does. It wouldn't be a memory issue, (at least I can't see how it can be as I have 16gb which is plenty), but more a CPU issue. Again I don't have a fantastic one , an i-7 @ 3.6 , and if that is getting taxed then I cannot see how it can be viable to implement officially. Perhaps one or two elements of those traffic mods on their own would be acceptable, but definitely not the entire package as it were.

And in fact I've actually removed the traffic mods completely now as they did nothing to help solve the problem I was having with traffic, which is to be honest a minor one for me. (I'm having a bigger issue with hundreds of tourists trains clogging up my railways lol).

Removing the traffic lights did provide a few minutes of hilarity for me though

 

[Finwickle]

Hey I get it! Trust needs to be earned. I shall do my best to getting these props available for everyone.

Thanks. This adds to the pile of trust that you have earned by now

Another suggestion. Not my own, but I thought I should copy it here. Thale5 published the brilliant Loading Screen Mod, which reports missing props (and more). As thale5 said: "The private content issue is suprisingly common among workshop assets. Clearly this is something the game should warn about when content is published."

It would help a lot if the asset editor warns when publishing an asset that uses private/local props instead of Workshop props. Too many assets I have are missing several props.

 

[metacritical]

i think the private prop is a different issue. for instance i downloaded an asset with props created especially for the asset and they are marked as private even though i can still see them in the workshop and the workshop says i am subscribed to them

MicrotechHologram.MicrotechHologram_Data
Required in: 629108516.Microtech Labs_Data Workshop asset requires private content, seems like asset bug?
MicrotechLogo.MicrotechLogo_Data
Required in: 629108516.Microtech Labs_Data Workshop asset requires private content, seems like asset bug?

 

[Sanny]

Congratulations on the award.

Question: How many people are actually working on the game now?

 

[KnightHawkTFC]

@co_martsu: Reading this makes me feel sorry for creating the whole detour stuff. My sincere apologies, I guess?

OMG don't be!
Your detour code has been instrumental to making mods and this game as successful as they are, don't for one second regret it, please.

Oh nonsense! You are the greatest hero! <3

^^this

Also Thanks @co_martsu for making the beta program\forum known, it should help with confusion\complaining from some that you were not doing that, when in fact you have for awhile now, and also hopefully gets the word out to a few some modders who otherwise were unaware it existed, but whom would be good candidates, or whom didn't know who to contact to submit an application.

 

[KnightHawkTFC]

I'm one of the people that already complained about updates. I don't think CO is doing anything wrong. That is indeed the price of using some mods that modify too much the game. The problem is that the frustration of losing a saved game is huge. Its hours and hours of dedication and when you are ready to play, steam pumps an update and you never know what will happen.

Another point is that the updates come without any warning. It would be nice if 1 day or 2 days before CO says: an update will be released in 2 days. That is enough time for us to enter the saved games, remove some mods and save it without the mods. Or even to be prepared to open Steam in offline mod for a while till you say goodbye to the city.

Another point is that I tried to play without mods, but some mods are impossible to live without. Remove traffic lights for example, is simple but mandatory.

Agreed. I do think it would be an advantage to warn the community a day or more before hand that a patch has cleared QA and is coming in the next xx hours, the news will not reach everyone, but it will reach some, and enough so that in the first hours around when a patch is released people at least know why things just broke. That said, we did have some warnings\indication on this last one, and I thought that was good.

 

[dreadicon]

Just wanted to chime in on the discussion about mods.

IMHO, CO should provide a better API; Mods are what has taken the game from good to great and long-lived. It keeps the fan community alive so that the less hardcore players always have a community to come back to. As such, I really do think CO should task either a developer specifically, or the team as a whole to allot dev time to modding on an ongoing and regular basis. An API wouldn't be a universal solution making all mods patch-proof, but it would dramatically reduce how often they break by a lot. I'd say a robust API would nix about 80% of the update breaks that happen now. A good API also is an indication of a well-build system, as it forces programmers to plan out and keep track of how their code all links up. It's the fundamental principle behind Inversion of Control and Dependency Injection, but that's getting a bit technical . Point is, a robust API is, far as I can tell given their code, how things break, and what modders/users want, the best option available with benefits to CO long-run both in terms of code hygine and user-facing improvements to stability/moddability.

@ForceInfinity While I can see where you are coming from with regards to the AI, consider that it's not like graphics in that graphics don't define the experience for most games; ask any gamer and they will tell you that gameplay is what defines a game's experience in the long run. Lets say they did offer a setting: now they need to balance the game's mechanics for these two configurations: road costs, service cost/coverage, public transit use & cost, despawn times, etc etc. These things take a very long time to balance and tweak to get them just right. Not to mention they would be maintaining the multiple AIs themselves more or less separately. They really don't maintain the graphics options so much; that's handled by Unity Engine and DirextX for them. In fact, there really isn't much they can do with graphics besides enable more Unity features that already exist. You say that it is common for games to have options like this, but besides graphics, can you name a feature that has a sliding scale for performance in any game? I've played hundreds of games, and I can't think of any that allow you to change gameplay *mechanics* to adjust system requirements.

Next, to all those complaining about updates before mods are fixed: Steam has the ability to disable updates for individual games. In order to play a game you've disabled updates to without updating, you just launch the game through the EXE rather than Steam. I do this with Terraria and Starbound all the time. Is it convenient? No. But that's Steam's fault for forcing updates when you play, regardless of what you want.

Finally, remember that CO is making a game for a lot of people, and as such, vanilla CSL is somewhat bland and limitted, and probably always will be. That's fine. That's how Kerbal Space Program works, and KSP has one of the most successful and rich modding communites in the history of games along side the other two mod titans of Elder Scrolls and Minecraft. Thing is, if CSL wants to go the mod route, they need to extend their tools; touch up the asset editor by including missing features like sub-buildings & animations, and extend support to a real C# API that lets modders get at the game's functionality. CO isn't perfect, but they're heading in the right direction now. And to CO: If making a proper API breaks all existing mods, please, for the love of God, DO IT ANYWAY. The longer you wait to implement an API, the more mods it will break and the more people will have come to rely on mods to deliver the experience they personally desire. Getting a cavity filled at the Dentist sucks, but it'll suck more later both in terms of your pocket book and pain if you don't get it taken care of sooner. And CO, the longer you wait to do an API, the more it will cost you and the more painful the PR of breaking all the established mods will be.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Just one thing I would really love: highway set up with both lanes in one go, instead of putting one direction after the other. I'm just not so good in that and hate it when they aren't perfect haha. OCD much

Thanks! And I feel you with the highway. This will be improved on when we get to it

Any chance that "when we get to it" will be in "Mass Transit"?

I would love to be able to place each direction separately (as now), but also have the option to place both directions together at the same time perfectly in line with each other.

 

[Grapplehoeker]

Today we are enjoying cake

Blueberry cheesecake? At this time of the year? Yummy!

our NewMoo community developer extraordinaire @TheLetterZ

I find nothing extraordinary about this 'community developer'. He does not develop the community. He was last seen (the only time this year) in the Steam forums in January.
I don't even see any participation of his in something he should be a prominent representative of, the PDXCON 2017.
'NewMoo'? That should read a categorical NotMoo!

 

[JPCosta]

@co_martsu

We miss your words of the month!