Best video on the state of CS2 by far!

[Simon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODtw-F5-5s

I came across this video and haven’t seen it posted here yet. The creator, Move The Mouse, appears to have a relatively small channel (compared to the better known ones anyway) but clearly deserves a lot more because he absolutely nails it, drawing heavily upon CO’s own quotes and claims in the lead up to release and since. It’s a frank and brutally honest opinion piece and can’t be faulted in its conclusions, in my opinion.

It’s shocking that this game was shown to creators and YouTubers as far back as 2021 yet it still launched in late 2023 without basic features (such as modding and a map editor/importer) or platforms that its predecessor had at launch more than eight years prior. Add to that the woeful performance problems and broken game systems and you have to wonder how they managed to stuff up the release this badly.

The video does a great job of explaining what’s wrong with the game and CO’s handling of it. It doesn’t so much explore the why or how it came to this. Why was CO unable to implement much-loved, necessary features from the original that any user survey would’ve told them fans were wanting and expecting in a sequel? Why did CO apparently not identify the scope and challenge of a sequel and hire the people necessary to make it happen? Were they simply inept and overconfident or were they fully aware but driven by profit motives instead? Probably a combination of the two.

Did they think they could just market their way around a turd of a release and patch it up eventually, selling as much of it as they thought possible as DLC to customers who’d bought onto the hype train? What happened to everything they’d (supposedly) learnt and developed over the course of CS1’s lifetime?

It seems to come down to a combination of greed, incompetence, disrespect for players, poor foresight, poor technical ability and overconfidence by thinking they were capable to deliver without bringing in more talent and a significantly larger development team. Didn’t the CEO gloat that CO still only has a staff of 20 or something, after the millions they must’ve earned from CS1? When you release an unfinished game, referring to such a small development team is neither a justification nor excuse. They had years to bring on more people if they needed to.

[Hootman]

I've been watching with interest prior to buying, gone are the days when I jump in on a release of ANYTHING. Figured maybe I'd pick it up on sale, but the best they could do was a measly 10%, $5.00 flipping dollars. Why bother. Not much of a Ho Ho Ho.

It has become a trend over the past decade to just release half finished games. What the dev did with Cyberpunk was unforgivable, and that was the last thing I bought on release day. I recall the SimCity fiasco, and that was an epic fail at the time, but now actually seems tame compared to what is occurring on a regular basis these days. I realize teams are small, and investor pressure to release is a thing, but now devs/publishers don't even mask the fact they know they are releasing unfinished Beta (using the term Beta is probably generous based on some game releases). For this game, in their video "Path to release" or whatever it's called, they even say that they were basically burnt out and out of ideas and just decided to release it to let the users provide feedback on what was broken.

You know what? If releasing Beta level products is going to be the norm, and the customer is going to be, in effect, QA for titles, then how about some reimbursement? Something. Not cash per se, but maybe something like naming a character, or some other sort of in-game acknowledgement when someone points out something of note that really improves the game with a patch?

It's a sad state of affairs that this type of game development has become the norm. Although it doesn't apply here, I remember when Early Access first came around, I was both skeptical and hopeful, waiting to see how that was going to play out. I think the jury is still out on the entire Early Access process. It seems some just wind up being a cash grab in the end, with the dev become bored with the process of development or management / cash backers demanding and end, release, and move on to something else. There is one Early Access I have right now where the very small dev finally released, threw out a DLC, and now the updates/news have dropped from every couple of weeks to months, and every indication is it's going to be abandoned. This is a risk with very small dev teams with only a few people. They make one last cash grab, and usually just prior to that hype all sorts of upcoming fixes and improvements, only to ride off into the sunset after the DLC is released, and the DLC ends up just as broken as the original title.

Again, most of this doesn't apply here. I don't doubt the teams committment, and Paradox has gotten a lot of money from me over the years, I like what they do as a publisher, and I will continue to watch, waiting on the day when CSII starts to receive more positive reviews, and I anticipate that I will be buying it.

It's just aggravating that it's become the norm it seems. I do think it's a bit funny that so many people have become incensed about that other new game that had sooooo much hype, as that release reached out to a customer base that apparently was not familiar with the companies brand, the type of games they released, the fact that they are known for specific bugs that are repeated in every title they release due to their in house game engine The fact that the company hype man has been the subject of memes over the years about what a joke of a hype man he is apparently went unknown to the new customer base. And they seem actually shocked that the gameplay / genre is not what that thought it would be.

Look forward to the improvements I have no doubt will be coming, just disappointed as I had sort of hoped this would be something I would be spending a lot of time playing over the holidays as I spend a week back in my hometown with the family. Who knows, I may buy it this weekend anyway, but I hope I have enough sense to wait, because if it's worse than I think it is, I'll be angry at myself.

Happy Holidays!

[Major Kudos™]

The game is really just what you make of it.

There are just as many good videos as bad.
If I didn't like the game I would just play Payday3 instead.

Still, it is an entertaining take on the usual hate.

[Ghostrider]

Originally posted by iFred:

Very good video.

I wonder where this CEO-Girl gets her self-confidence from. There is nothing to be proud of in CS2 - every single "feature" is so broken down to the core that they need at least a year or two to fix it.

While CS2 does have issues, at least it is not as bad as the rebooted Saints Row game, that was so bad that the developer Volition Games, was shut down by its owner Embracer Group.

[zaltocleotl[Banned@Paradox]]

#/ Command: close thread
#? Reason: not approved content
#/ Command: BanPoster
#? Reason: sockpuppet
#/ Command: keep record of positive commenters of this thread so they can be banned too
#? Reason: Oh just do it

Oh, wait, this is the Steam forums, not Paradox... sorry.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Ghostrider:

While CS2 does have issues, at least it is not as bad as the rebooted Saints Row game, that was so bad that the developer Volition Games, was shut down by its owner Embracer Group.

Sure there is and always will be worse. But looking towards the lowest common denominator hardly reflects well on this or any game. I don’t think CO are evil or meant to stuff up this badly, but their competence, ability to scale and bizarre choices and priorities have to be brought into question.

Their choice to push out a clearly unfinished, buggy and quite frankly uninspiring game mere weeks before the holidays so the stinking mess has to linger with a period of no support is an affront to gamers. They deserve praise where praise is due (not much) but equally fair criticism for what they consider a finished release-worthy product they had many years to develop.

[Abrexus]

Originally posted by Simon:

Sure there is and always will be worse. But looking towards the lowest common denominator hardly reflects well on this or any game. I don’t think CO are evil or meant to stuff up this badly, but their competence, inability to scale and bizarre choices and priorities have to be brought into question.

I'm so glad you said this, I was thinking the same thing. I think the video is very well thought out, and reflects a lot of the concerns I have with this release.

One thing is particular he mentioned and I happen to agree with is how many people use the excuse that...

"You can't expect them to add 8 years of DLC content into a new game."

No, but I do expect them to take what was LEARNED over those 8 years and make a BETTER base game.

[Ghostrider]

Originally posted by Simon:

Originally posted by Ghostrider:

While CS2 does have issues, at least it is not as bad as the rebooted Saints Row game, that was so bad that the developer Volition Games, was shut down by its owner Embracer Group.

Sure there is and always will be worse. But looking towards the lowest common denominator hardly reflects well on this or any game. I don’t think CO are evil or meant to stuff up this badly, but their competence, ability to scale and bizarre choices and priorities have to be brought into question.

Their choice to push out a clearly unfinished, buggy and quite frankly uninspiring game mere weeks before the holidays so the stinking mess has to linger with a period of no support is an affront to gamers. They deserve praise where praise is due (not much) but equally fair criticism for what they consider a finished release-worthy product they had many years to develop.

Pretty much the only thing I could think up at the time, in response to the post I was quoting. lol

I do agree there, why did CO release the game in its current state when they did. Only thing I can think of is word has it that Paradox needed to boost its financials, for that period.

Either way still does not help their look, to the wider gaming community. More so with how well Cities Skylines 1 has done in its time.

Looking at it now from a hindsight point of view, the game would of been better if it was released next year, at the same time as whenever console version is supposed to be released.

All of which is strange since the game was originally supposed to be released back in 2021.

But it got pushed back to 2023 for issues they were having back then. And yet with all that extra time, it seems to have still not helped and something went snafu somewhere.

[Niki Juggs]

Originally posted by Major Kudos™:

The game is really just what you make of it.

There are just as many good videos as bad.
If I didn't like the game I would just play Payday3 instead.

Still, it is an entertaining take on the usual hate.

Oooops.... There went all that good will.

[ForesterSOF]

If I still care I will look at it in Oct 2024 and see. Till then it is back to CSI.

[Niki Juggs]

If it's still around Oct '24 I may buy it myself just to help keep devs busy working on it. If they get the price down to where it should be for a non working DLC that is. Say 4.95

[🄼 🄾 🄾 🅂 🄴]

good video, but the dudes mic is broken, sounds like a cricket in the background :D

[Haystack]

Originally posted by SyncroMoose:

good video, but the dudes mic is broken, sounds like a cricket in the background :D

Try it on a different machine... Sounds fine to me on all my devices. Cell phone to gaming.

[Apples]

Originally posted by Haystack:

Originally posted by SyncroMoose:

good video, but the dudes mic is broken, sounds like a cricket in the background :D

Try it on a different machine... Sounds fine to me on all my devices. Cell phone to gaming.

no, the video has background noise, could be the mic.

[Haystack]

Doesn't change the content. Still gets the point across. But hey, I can totally understand why it could hurt your ears. I wouldn't listen to it any more if I were you.

[Flying Dutchman]

Originally posted by Simon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODtw-F5-5s

I came across this video and haven’t seen it posted here yet. The creator, Move The Mouse, appears to have a relatively small channel (compared to the better known ones anyway) but clearly deserves a lot more because he absolutely nails it, drawing heavily upon CO’s own quotes and claims in the lead up to release and since. It’s a frank and brutally honest opinion piece and can’t be faulted in its conclusions, in my opinion.

It’s shocking that this game was shown to creators and YouTubers as far back as 2021 yet it still launched in late 2023 without basic features (such as modding and a map editor/importer) or platforms that its predecessor had at launch more than eight years prior. Add to that the woeful performance problems and broken game systems and you have to wonder how they managed to stuff up the release so badly.

The video does a great job of explaining what’s wrong with the game and CO’s handling of it. It doesn’t so much explore the why or how it came to this. Why was CO unable to implement much-loved, necessary features from the original that any user survey would’ve told them fans were wanting and expecting in a sequel? Why did CO apparently not identify the scope and challenge of a sequel and hire the people necessary to make it happen? Were they simply inept and overconfident or were they fully aware but driven by profit motives instead? Probably a combination of the two.

Did they think they could just market their way around a turd of a release and patch it up eventually, selling as much of it as they thought possible as DLC to customers who’d bought onto the hype train? What happened to everything they’d (supposedly) learnt and developed over the course of CS1’s lifetime?

It seems to come down to a combination of greed, incompetence, disrespect for players, poor foresight, poor technical ability and overconfidence by thinking they were capable to deliver without bringing in more talent and a significantly larger development team. Didn’t the CEO gloat that CO still only has a staff of 20 or something, after the millions they must’ve earned from CS1? When you release an unfinished game, referring to such a small development team is neither a justification nor excuse. They had years to bring on more people if they needed to.

Mate, you don't even have cities skylines 2 in your steam library. Based on that fact I think that you're being quite bolt here.

Yes there are some minor problems. But if you would actually play the game you'd notice that it's not game changing at the moment. Everyone is simply jumping on the hate train without knowing what they're talking About.

Heck I had and still have a lot of fun with the game. Every penny worth. Even more so whenever well have mods and assets.