BananaTrifleViolin ,

I loved Cities 1, I was massively looking forward to 2 but it's been nothing but a shitshow.

I've also had a enough of the gaslighting around this game that somehow it's the angry customers that are the problem.

loobkoob ,
@loobkoob@kbin.social avatar

The angry customers and the state of the game are problems.

  • it's hard to feel sorry for people who pre-ordered because they got exactly what they paid for - a game of unknown quality and quantity of content
  • it's hard to feel sorry for people who bought post-release because they also got exactly what they paid for - a game where reviews detailed poor quality and quantity of content
  • customers being disappointed and/or wanting a refund is perfectly reasonable
  • people wanting the game to be better is also reasonable
  • people abusing the devs is not reasonable

I'm not going to defend the poor quality of the game because it's obviously bad (from what I gather, anyway - I've not played it myself) and should be improved. But I do think gamers could learn to be a little more responsible with their purchases and inform themselves before buying a game.

I'm pretty over the whole cycle of games coming out and not meeting expectations, people buying them anyway (through pre-orders or day-one purchases), people being unnecessarily rude/hostile/sending death threats to developers as if they were forced to buy the game as gunpoint. Yes, developers should try to do better, yes publishers should often give developers more time to polish up games rather than announcing the release date two years in advance and refusing to delay, but also consumers could really take some responsibility for what they decide to give money to.

sukhmel ,

screenshot of a comment in the thread mocking a reply from developer: "Change management is particularly difficult with games like Cities Skylines 2. It's the most complete in depth city simulation ever written. There are a lot of moving parts and with its agent based deep simulation change management is a challenge. It's difficult to see in advance that removing game assets from the game will result in the unavailability of said assets in game.
No doubt the there there was a change management procedure prepared in advance that was reviewed by all stakeholders. But this was such an edge case, removing assets resulting in the unavailability of said assets in game, that this interruption simply couldn't have been for foreseen.
It won't be long now. In last week's update CO announced its intent to form an advisory panel, including members of the Cities community. CO will be able to leverage this expertise when formulating its rollback strategy. It's a solid bet that forming this advisory panel will be on COs agenda in the next couple weeks and we will see content creators showcasing a pre-release rollback in the months that follow.
CO has committed to fixing core game features before the release of Bridges and Piers in Q1 of 2025 and we have every reason to believe this commitment is firm. Certainly we will see Beach Properties assets return to Skylines 2 by Q4 2024 or at the latest as an update to the base game released simultaneously with Bridges and Piers in Q1 of 2025."

This is just gold 🤣

FooBarrington OP ,

God, how can someone be so blind?

But this was such an edge case, removing assets resulting in the unavailability of said assets in game, that this interruption simply couldn't have been for foreseen.

They couldn't foresee issues created by removing assets, in a game that is supposed to support user mods, which can be added/removed at any time? Really?

The explanation I've seen is that they wanted to pull the DLC as soon as possible, since it was - literally - the worst-rated product on Steam. I'm 99% sure the bean counters responsible for all of the terrible decisions (release the game, no matter what state! Release the DLC, no matter the amount of content!) pulled the lever on this one again - no chance they'll see any responsibility with themselves.

lanolinoil ,
@lanolinoil@lemmy.world avatar

surely this is satire no?

FooBarrington OP ,

You're probably right, especially considering this sentence:

It's difficult to see in advance that removing game assets from the game will result in the unavailability of said assets in game.

I've seen this kind of defense meant honestly before, so I'm not 100% sure, but by god - I hope you're right.

sukhmel ,

This is but their legit response was "dunno, that wasn't supposed to happen but it kinda did, maybe don't do anything now, we'll try to fix it sometimes", so this is not that far:

developer response: "Hi all! I just wanted to pop in and let you know we're looking into what's happened as you were of course supposed to keep access to the Beach Properties content until the patch that moves it to the base game arrived. Assets are replaced by the placeholder boxes, but as the waterfront zoning isn't available in the base game yet, I recommend holding off on loading saves with a lot of those zones. At this time we don't have an ETA for when this is resolved, but at the very least the upcoming patch (date still to be announced) will resolve it as the assets become part of the base game. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience this is causing!

Caligvla ,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Wait, but if they pulled the game from Steam shouldn't the owners still keep the game (DLC in this case) on their libraries?

FooBarrington OP ,

They refunded people, which probably removed the DLC from their libraries. People who bought the ultimate edition kept it.

Caligvla ,
@Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

That can happen? I wasn't aware developers could literally remove a game from your Steam library, if so that's really shitty and scummy.

FooBarrington OP ,

Well, they refunded it, so people got their money back. But it sucks that it breaks peoples save files.

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