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Yeah. I was 70% joking when I said it a page or two ago, but now I'm starting to think it may actually be possible that with the way things are going Paradox may conclude they can't make enough profit off the costs of developing DLC and just abandon CS2. The mod tools--good mod tools--are the #1 thing that needs to happen ASAP. If this game is going to be salvaged it's going to be salvaged by the modders. But Paradox probably doesn't understand that.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:13
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Yeah they either need to put out substantial bug fixes / simulation rebalances, or they need to get Mods going so players can do that job for them. If one of those things doesn’t happen fairly soon this game is in serious trouble.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:18
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It is kind of funny that they fell into the same trap as the last sim city of trying to simulate all the citizens and stuff. I get it but I’d rather have it abstracted at this point. It’s a game that doesn’t city paint well as lack of variety kills it. The sim has many parts that are/aren’t working with no indications as to what is or isn’t so sim fans aren’t happy. It pleases no one and the only improvements are in road tools and graphics. They clearly bit off too much.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:24
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Lord Packinham posted:It is kind of funny that they fell into the same trap as the last sim city of trying to simulate all the citizens and stuff. I get it but I’d rather have it abstracted at this point. That's what Cities Skylines 1 did. The trap here was ramping up the complexity too far.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:26
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Personally I still don't give a poo poo about simulating every individual citizen in real time and am still waiting for someone to stick with abstracting it and give us SimCity 4 but with 3D and a modern interface
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Feb 7, 2024 15:28
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i don't think the problem is really with any of the systems existing, just that absolutely everything is underbaked. the economy, land values, money, the xp system, the maps, even the buildings themselves. there was genuine excitement about all the possibilities and improvements the game has its just, not completed. late alpha/early beta is what we got. if they were feeling pressure from the suits it makes sense, since they would be the ones who would see that everything is "done" and don't realize how much polish and balancing a simulation game needs (also probably saying that the game doesn't "need" the mod tools which  )
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Feb 7, 2024 15:34
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Paradox might even understand how important modding support is, but they also fixed exports in three different patches before they started working. There's a chance that CO aren't really up to the task right now and that's why everything takes so long.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:35
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lagidnam posted:Paradox might even understand how important modding support is, but they also fixed exports in three different patches before they started working. There's a chance that CO aren't really up to the task right now and that's why everything takes so long. Or alternatively, maybe, just maybe, the executives at Paradox don't know and don't care how development actually works and forced CO to release when the game was still in an early alpha state. e: I actually have always been less inclined to give CO credit for being development geniuses than most; I think CS1 was a very flawed game but caught lightning in a bottle by simply being most of what EA promised in the shameless, naked cash grab/franchise murder that was SimShitty. I personally would not have liked CS1 at all but for the mods. But it seems clear they were forced to release when they knew drat well the product was nowhere near show time. That doesn't preclude the possibility they would never have gotten CS2 working right even if given a Star Citizen timeline. I think you may very well be right that they bit off more than they could chew. But the way too early release is Problem One here. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Feb 7, 2024 |
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Feb 7, 2024 15:39
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lagidnam posted:Paradox might even understand how important modding support is, but they also fixed exports in three different patches before they started working. There's a chance that CO aren't really up to the task right now and that's why everything takes so long. paradox executive confused at why you need tools to mod the game when just need to edit text files and bitmaps
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Feb 7, 2024 15:42
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One of the problems is, Paradox spent too much of their history releasing horribly broken unfinished games and then slowly fixing them and it worked out for them, and they might not quite fully grasp just how much of a special place they were in and it doesn't necessarily apply to other genres and publishers quite as well.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:49
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MikeJF posted:One of the problems is, Paradox spent too much of their history releasing horribly broken unfinished games and then slowly fixing them and it worked out for them, and they might not quite fully grasp just how much of a special place they were in and it doesn't necessarily apply to other genres and publishers quite as well. This is a natural thing to think, but then again the Paradox that made CK2 and EU4 is gone. Their behavior now is more suggestive of a bog standard publicly traded corporation being run by bog standard suits--which is in fact what they now are. They surely still have a lot of cultural heritage left over among the staff that thinks in the way you described... but Paradox isn't developing CS2, just publishing it, so those people are probably not very much involved. The CS2 fiasco is purely about Paradox's C-suite saying "no, we must goose our numbers this quarter so you will release it now."
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Feb 7, 2024 15:57
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lagidnam posted:City Planner Plays is also reconsidering the amount of CSII videos he puts out. He also explains why the game is basically unplayable without the land value fix mod. I’ve been watching his magnolia county videos and was thinking “huh, it looks like CS2 might’ve been fixed by patches?” Then I watched one of his live streams and lol. lmao.
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Feb 7, 2024 16:20
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*no longer getting paid
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Feb 7, 2024 16:22
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Archduke Frantz Fanon posted:i don't think the problem is really with any of the systems existing, just that absolutely everything is underbaked. the economy, land values, money, the xp system, the maps, even the buildings themselves. there was genuine excitement about all the possibilities and improvements the game has its just, not completed. late alpha/early beta is what we got. if they were feeling pressure from the suits it makes sense, since they would be the ones who would see that everything is "done" and don't realize how much polish and balancing a simulation game needs (also probably saying that the game doesn't "need" the mod tools which All underbaked, and I get the distinct feeling they didn't do a lot of consulting with domain experts about the systems they were supposed to implement. The game has all these simulations about household wealth, and pricing rent, and an economy with supply chains, and imports and exports, and household consumption, and yadda yadda yadda, but if there's any bugs or edge cases or real-world scenarios that they missed then the whole thing is thrown off and feels weird. I haven't watched the CPP video on land value yet, but it sounds like exactly the kind of thing that could come from a land value simulation you didn't think hard enough about and ask someone who works in the housing market about before implementing.
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Feb 7, 2024 16:26
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Lol at all the content creators getting one more payday out of CS2, at least until it gets fixed enough for a new "CS2 IS BACK!!!" video
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Feb 7, 2024 16:27
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New Word of the Week just dropped:Mariina Hallikainen posted:Word of the Week #11
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Feb 7, 2024 16:28
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LOL, I never cared about the WOTW before but now I'm going to be looking forward to them every week to read the latest in Mariina's opening troll
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Feb 7, 2024 16:35
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Game dead, savage dog simulation on point
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Feb 7, 2024 16:40
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I couldn’t tell if that was a bit or not, I’m not sure what that says about CO’s PR policy
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Feb 7, 2024 16:45
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finns are just like that
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Feb 7, 2024 16:46
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Mariina: "I'm a CEO because I like to make money." Also Mariina: Jonny Shiloh posted:New Word of the Week just dropped:
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Feb 7, 2024 17:13
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The dogs feature is one of those things that just blows my mind. Why are dogs at all a population? Why are they their own thing? Why not just randomly spawn a dog with some percentage of walking citizens sometimes? I like that they added them but what’s the value in simming them more than essentially a pedestrian’s “accessory?” There’s a lot that feels like it fails because of “no having enough time in the oven,” but then there’s just a wellspring of stuff that’s frustratingly confusing to have even designed in, or is so absolutely broken that it feels like there’s no clear design document that sets out what that system was supposed to look like. For example, I have a pretty sizeable city with good mail coverage and one sorting facility. The post offices are busy, but not overfilled, and there’s probably half a dozen or so. They store a lot of mail, though, which is what prompted me to want to build the sort facility. Heres the thing - the sort facility is almost entirely idle. (Mind you a few patches back it was completely broken, besides.) I don’t know what kicks it off and sends a truck to fetch I sorted mail. I don’t know when it decides to send sorted mail. I don’t know why my post offices retain mail when they can send out more trucks. My guess is that what happens is it’s sort of like any other good - places have a demand for it and it’s been over generated so that there’s always some deliver. But that’s not how mail works! The post office doesn’t hold onto my next 3 Amazon packages until I decide I “need” mail and then send me one. Because it doesn’t work intuitively and there’s no real tools to affect change or even really understand what the post offices are doing, I’m just left with “I guess I don’t understand the feature and everything seems okay, trucks are out running, it’s fine?” I don’t know when to build new post offices, necessarily, unless something breaks badly. I had no idea that I didn’t need sorting, and I don’t know when it would become relevant. I don’t know if these are bugs or working as intended. I use mail as an example but there’s numerous systems that fall into this weird state of not being clear enough to even know if there’s a bug or if it’s just a half baked system. Meanwhile we’ve got a Dog Specialist making sure people have accurately simulated dog lifecycles and dog travel and the dogs have a name and, and, and. Why???
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Feb 7, 2024 17:21
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Anime Store Adventure posted:The dogs feature is one of those things that just blows my mind. Why are dogs at all a population? Why are they their own thing? Why not just randomly spawn a dog with some percentage of walking citizens sometimes? I like that they added them but what’s the value in simming them more than essentially a pedestrian’s “accessory?” the game doesn't have bikes but it does have dogs whose sole purpose is holding up trains and loving up the simulation.
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Feb 7, 2024 17:25
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Anime Store Adventure posted:The dogs feature is one of those things that just blows my mind. Why are dogs at all a population? Why are they their own thing? Why not just randomly spawn a dog with some percentage of walking citizens sometimes? I like that they added them but what’s the value in simming them more than essentially a pedestrian’s “accessory?” My guess is all this fits into the larger picture mentioned in one of those videos - they wanted to connect CS2 to their life sim game.
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Feb 7, 2024 17:38
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RadioDog posted:My guess is all this fits into the larger picture mentioned in one of those videos - they wanted to connect CS2 to their life sim game. Is there a textbook they're following to replicate all of EA's mistakes, or
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Feb 7, 2024 18:07
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I'd almost bet that it's easier to implement dogs by subclassing citizens and stubbing out some behaviour than by having them be separate. And having pets on the streets this way would be easy to implement while adding some visual flavour that you need in a city builder to look organic.
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Feb 7, 2024 18:13
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RadioDog posted:My guess is all this fits into the larger picture mentioned in one of those videos - they wanted to connect CS2 to their life sim game. I'm pleased this suspicion is getting some traction - I've been thinking it for a while now. Not going to happen now though, whatever hopes they might have had. Also, from the PDX forums... here's the unlisted PDX investor video relating to their year-end financials for those who are interested in seeing Fredrik Wester trying to sound upbeat about CS2 while looking shifty and definitely not pleased. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7keZMDhZ6E&list=PL4hR-M4rl7ueJ0iUcCOM6QxHUktR8_sTw&t=378s
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Feb 7, 2024 18:14
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Entropic posted:Wow, they even lost Phil. It really feels like the tide is turning in the last week or two. People are just fed up. Or their paid contracts are now over. It cant be a co-incidence.
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Feb 7, 2024 20:14
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serious gaylord posted:Or their paid contracts are now over. It cant be a co-incidence. This is what I think, too. I don't think 100% of the youtubers who got early access would've been as polite as they have been. There's probably a min number of minutes of minimal-critical content they were required to provide over a period of x weeks and now that's up and they can be mean.
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Feb 7, 2024 20:24
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serious gaylord posted:Or their paid contracts are now over. It cant be a co-incidence. Most of them have been posting on the subreddit recently, and they're all very adamant that there was no post-release NDA that has expired, and doesn't seem to be related to contracts. I think they've all just been talking to each other, polling their communities about doing some C:S1 content again (which everyone supports), and realizing after the last few lovely WoWs and patches and modding news that this game isn't improving any time soon. I don't think its a coincidence, but I think its motivated mostly by CO's 2024 actions, just like how the community in general (including this thread) also turned sour after the first post-holidays break WoW. edit: CitiesByDiana even brings up that she did make a video critical of the game right after release, and she's done CO tie-in videos on the C:S2 channel, so it didn't stop her before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag5BtetLmpg
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Feb 7, 2024 20:24
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It's also possible that when one or a couple of them did videos about it the rest felt confident enough to make their own, knowing they wouldn't get dogpiled by fans and that they wouldn't be alone in criticizing the game on video and risk getting a phonecall from sweden.Jonny Shiloh posted:New Word of the Week just dropped:
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Feb 7, 2024 20:50
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Poil posted:risk getting a phonecall from sweden. mods please, the title.
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Feb 7, 2024 20:53
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I assume the obviously fake word of the week post was a joke and should not be taken seriously.
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Feb 7, 2024 21:05
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10/10, no notes
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Feb 7, 2024 21:10
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Real Civil Engineer is still doing CS:2 videos and seems to still be enjoying it, but he does a lot of silly challenges instead of “real” cities. He’s got a serious city on his Patreon, which I’m not subscribed to; maybe that’s where he’s got his more serious thoughts about the game.
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Feb 7, 2024 21:28
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Yeah my assumption is that their personal creator chats and DMs have been encouraging them all. Like it's probably a lot less scary to put out a video criticizing CS2 if you have Biffa saying "I'm making a video criticizing CS2, should be up next week." You know you're not a weirdo outlier who dislikes a game everyone else is happy with, and you won't be risking the heat from a backlash alone. Along with a couple of WotWs that were especially enraging and the fact modding is forever away, I think it's just a combination of straws on camel's backs and a mutual sense of vindication.
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Feb 7, 2024 22:29
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piratepilates posted:Most of them have been posting on the subreddit recently, and they're all very adamant that there was no post-release NDA that has expired, and doesn't seem to be related to contracts. Yeah i personally think its the regular feedback loop. Tuber plays games, games attract the viewers, viewers get ads, ads pay tuber. Tuber needs the games to get the viewers, so its in their best interest to try to get you excited for the game whether or not anyone is paying them to do so. They need the game to make a living. For a lot of these Tubers, their entire career is dependent on not only one genre of game, but one specific game: CS1. CS2 flopping is a fundamental threat to their jobs, because viewers aren't interested in CS1 content anymore either. Now that its clear that the tailspin isn't recoverable in the short term and the viewers are dropping drastically, they've gotta find a new angle... or a new living.
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Feb 7, 2024 22:37
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Poil posted:How drunk was she when she posted that? Finns can get pretty drunk - I've worked with a few of them. explosivo posted:I assume the obviously fake word of the week post was a joke and should not be taken seriously. ???
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Feb 7, 2024 23:00
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My Summer City
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Feb 7, 2024 23:01
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I don't know what to think and/or feel about the whole thing anymore.  skooma512 posted:My Summer City
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Feb 8, 2024 00:15
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