Cities: Skyline II Developer Colossal Order has a uniquely close relationship with the community.original City: Skyline It came out in 2015 and swallowed up viewers left behind by EA. sim cityreleased in 2013, was a huge flop. City: Skyline It solved my city planning headaches and cost only $30. The game was first released for his PC, Mac, and Linux with modest hardware requirements, and also came to consoles within two years. Critically speaking, City: Skyline Mods are also supported through the Steam Workshop, allowing players to add their own tools to the game and share those features with others.
“and City: Skyline, the audience size has grown, the role of modding has become even bigger, and it has given us developers a huge amount of creativity and inspiration,” Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen told Engadget. . “From quality of life improvements to ideas for her DLC content, we gathered a tremendous amount of information to create the game. City: Skyline is today. “
Colossal Order and its publisher Paradox Interactive continued to support City: Skyline With consistent game updates and DLC drops, the modding community continued to grow. The game gained a ton of new players during the 2020 pandemic, and around that time, many of the now prominent content creators turned to this game. City: Skyline For streams and videos.
In the months leading up to its release, Cities: Skyline II In October 2023, Colossal Order partnered with a small number of content creators to provide early access to parts of the game and allow them to create weekly YouTube videos showcasing specific features. These partners include: Bifa, two dollars twenty, Yumble, infrastructure list and urban planning drama. City Planner Plays has a smart edge in this area. The man behind the construction, Philip, has been working as an urban planner for over a decade, and his videos often include insight into how real cities are designed. He started his channel in mid-2020 and is now running an avid channel. City: Skyline Streamer and video editor with approximately 650,000 subscribers on YouTube. Like many other community members, he has a years-long history with his Colossal Order.
“in front Cities: Skyline II At the time of release, most people in the community viewed them in an incredibly positive light, seeing them as “one of us” and the type of developers we wanted to make the games we loved. I think so,” Philip said. “They were seen as responsive and generous. … I don’t remember anything bad being said about them.”
That’s exactly what it made January 15th was a real surprise.
“We have seen growing toxic trends in our community, and we have never experienced this like this before,” Harikainen wrote, adding that the negative feedback is directed at both developers and players. It revealed that. She continued, “While we have always valued our developers participating on various social platforms and communicating directly with the community, our greatest responsibility is always to protect our team.” is.”
Tensions have been running high in the Cities: Skylines community since the sequel was released in October. The game was originally pitched as a simultaneous PC and console release, but it is only available on PC and is reserved for when other versions are released. On top of that, Colossal Order raised the game’s minimum and recommended specs just a month before release, but the new requirements put it out of reach for the majority of players.
Even with a capable rig, the game is riddled with visual and mechanical bugs.philip said Cities: Skyline II The RTX 4090 graphics card was taxed, running at 100% on the main menu, and the game was too GPU dependent to play at 4K at launch.
Simply put, I feel like the game took longer to develop.
“Since its release, Cities: Skyline IIThe situation has definitely become more troubling,” Philip said. “Many people appreciate Colossal Order’s transparency with weekly updates and frequent bug fixes, but many also find Colossal Order aggressive in releasing games that aren’t ready for release. It seems like there is.”
Haraikainen admitted that the game lacks some promised and widely touted features, such as mod support.
“Obviously it’s disappointing that we didn’t achieve all of our goals, but it’s great that the game is finally out and we can continue to work on it more openly,” she said.
As far as Colossal Order sees it, the problem lies in community response. Cities: Skyline II. Hallikainen said players are venting on social media, Steam and Paradox forums, and the feedback has become toxic. She cites a spike in personal attacks against developers and other players.
“Cities: Skyline II “It attracted a lot of attention and expectations were very high,” she said. “It was natural to cause frustration for spectators when a match didn’t live up to all its promises. However, this shortcoming also encouraged conversations within the community about ideas for improvement, constructive feedback, and respectful discussion. It should cause it.”
For City Planner Plays and other community members, the problem is the game itself. Where the Colossal Order recognizes harm, Philip recognizes legitimate frustration.
“I’ll admit that I was surprised by this explanation of what’s going on in the world. City: Skyline community about Cities: Skyline II,” he said. “I’ve noticed an increase in negative emotions. But I can’t say I’ve noticed an increase in toxicity. And frankly, I completely understand that negative thought. I think it’s possible and predictable.”
Philip identified four factors that are causing negative emotions. The game is only available on his PC, it is buggy and unplayable on many common hardware configurations, there is no official support for mods, and Colossal Order takes no responsibility for the game’s failures. That’s it.
“Colossal Order has been transparent and interacted with the community, but has not taken responsibility for the game’s release,” Philip said. “I hear this over and over again. Many players seem to want us to acknowledge that the game’s release was poor, say we’re sorry, and make a gesture of making amends. So far, they have We’ve been delaying the release of DLC, which was a huge negative for those who bought the Ultimate Edition of the game, but it hasn’t made up for it. [They haven’t] We gave people the information they were looking for. ”
The biggest failing of Philip’s list is the lack of mods. Colossal Order plans to add an official pipeline for mods directly through Paradox, rather than the Steam Workshop, which is the home of mods. City: Skyline. Moving to an in-house modding platform ensures parity across all platforms and brings modding to non-Steam consoles and players. However, his modding community for Cities: Skylines is built on the popular and easy-to-use platform Steam Workshop, and the current player base is simply being inconvenienced by the delayed console release. Masu.
“The maps that come with the game aren’t great, with incredibly high difficulty, unforgiving weather, etc. Also, many basic features need improvement,” Philip said. “Modding offered that opportunity, but it’s not available yet. Worst of all, early messages made it seem like modding was just around the corner weeks after launch. [but it’s been delayed] The timing for the second quarter of 2024 has not been determined. ”
It was the collaboration with the community that made the original game such a success, and the sequel could benefit from crowdsourced improvements. At the moment, some players are using third-party tools to make his mod work. Cities: Skyline II.
“The technology is new, the simulation has been completely rewritten, and this game has all the potential to be the city-builder of the decade,” Harikainen said. “Where we failed was in getting the mod support available in the release. We are doing our best to catch up. We’re glad the mod community isn’t waiting for us and already has great support for the game. I’m glad you’re creating a mod for him.”
this is just the beginning Cities: Skyline II. Colossal Order has plans to support and expand the game over the next 10 years.original City: Skyline When it was first released in 2015, it didn’t have all the bells and whistles, and the sequel will start in a similar position.A huge order is seen Cities: Skyline II It served as a new foundation, but its core community expected a more complete experience.
“The feedback we got from content creators and modders really helped us move in the right direction. We love working collaboratively with different stakeholders,” Harikainen said. Ta. “There is a lot of work to do, but we intend to continue for the next 10 years.”
Cities: Skyline II Thanks to a number of updates by Colossal Order, it has improved significantly in the months since its launch. It’s on the right track.huge order Game progress will be updated weekly, but rewriting the story will take time – and perhaps an apology, a plan, and some free in-game perks. Cities: Skyline II.
“I think the most ‘toxic’ people right now are the biggest fans of the game,” Philip said. “And frankly, they’re just disappointed that the game doesn’t work well or they can’t play it at all. They get disappointed and lash out, but that’s not right. But for me, it’s that the game If it is fully fixed and accountability is met, it means there is a path to remediation.”
