Producer's Letter: Special Edition

Hello Mayors!

This is where you can leave feedback on Producer's Letter: Special Edition.

Please keep comments constructive and any new ideas for the game should still be posted in the Update and Idea Pool thread.

Any off topic posts may be deleted.


Thank you,

Your Rising Cities Team.

 

Could someone please explain to a simple soul like me why x-presso makes it harder to add new content like new quests, events, etc?
I really don't get it.

Other than that, the producer's letter is much appreciated.

 

OK, deep breath, and I will try and say this in a constructive way...

First of all: what I have to say has nothing to do with the content, i.e., the upcoming changes in the game. I keep my mind open, and hope that, indeed, they will make the game more dynamic and exciting.
However, could BP please, please employ a communication expert? There are people, you know, whose job is to take professional messages and articulate them in a way that is accessible to laymen. In this case, I am referring to:
"..its removal (X-presso) is a necessity as it completely throws out the balance of the game and its economy. Since the game’s pricing structure has its weaknesses and the X-Presso further distorts the economy balance..."
What balance? What is the "game economy"? What are the weaknesses of the pricing structure? I do have my suspicions, of course, but the idea of publishing these letters is, after all, not to involve us in speculations, but to inform us. Not being a game developer myself, I have no idea what you are talking about.
I do appreciate the attempts at communication. I do not believe the producers are trying intentionally to hold back information. But I am afraid that this cryptic message does not do much enlighten us about your motives.

And a big thank you for implementing the MM confirmation!

 

In order for the FAQ to be complete you should inform us about the MM/xpresso ratio, so that we will know how many MM we will get for our pile of Xpresso

 

Tamy great message. We understand that the developer and producers letters and comments you are trying to communicate difficult and complex information to a group of novice and naive people. That can be very frustrating. We want/need more information. We want to know Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why. Most of your messages answer the what, often the when, occasionally the who, often the where, sometimes the how, and rarely the why. This leads to confusion and mistrust on our part.

 

Confused !! is this letter aimed at £,$ € spenders and not the rest of us who play for free and will not use £.$,€, to advance their game on principle of it being free.
Has the Bureau of plain English been consulted?

 

Metro Money is a currency that can also be obtained by players from other sources then payment (eg: quests, events, other rewards)

 

I just read the Producers message and the accompanying FAQ information relating to the planned changes. I then read then both again. Still bewildered by the explanations for the games changes i read then once more. I have come to the conclusion that i am either 1). Extremely dense or 2) going to find myself amongst a large number of similarly,completely baffled Mayors. I like to consider myself as possessing an intelligence which allows me to be able to tie my own shoelaces and safely shave my face amongst other daily challenges,so qualifying for Option 1 seems doubtful. If a redraft and posting of both the Producers letter and the FAQ that goes with it so some of us less studious Mayors are able to understand pretty much most of it then i would be a very happy bunny.
Yours perplexed,Mayor Sleepylee.

BTW. I know it is the wrong place to post it however as it is relevant maybe a new Trading building can be introduced... for example a Solicitors Office.

 

At least it starts to look like finaly somebody has some idea where the game is going and can communicate it in at least a bit reasonable way, if not perfectly effective way. I may disagree with the statements and explanation included but will not comment on that. They are developing the game the way they believe is right. Hopefuly they will now stop pretending they listen to us as it's obvious they don't. If things are laid out plainly, with no silly games, I'm ok with that. I uphold their right to do the game the way they want to. We then decide if we still want to play it or not. Personaly I think it will have good aspects but again, will not elaborate on that as my posts don't change anything anyway. Just waste of breath.

 

thanks for the latest update the introduction of the MM safety layer will be appreciated by every one, as for the other developments i will wait till they are introduced for any further comments. how ever the exchange rate for the xpresso to mm should be listed as of now, that way the mayors are able to plan the strategies.

 

Okay,

First off, thanks for communicating the removal of Xpresso from the game before it happened. That's an improvement!

Unfortunately, I can't really decipher what the real-world results of this change are going to be.

Can anyone explain to me what this means:

When they're going to "multiply" the MM by a factor, is it referring the users current available MM, or to current MM prices? What on earth does "numbers that fall on a decimal" mean? I had a cousin that fell on a banana peel once, but I don't think I've ever had a number that fell on a decimal.

Does anyone know what this means:

First, I think they mean that what's priced at 30MM today will be priced at 90MM in the future, in order to be able to "devalue" the MM currency. However, how does this equate to things being "much cheaper" than before? Are they going to multiply current MM stock by a factor greater than they increase the prices? Then they say that there will be new MM items "at a much lower price". Does that mean lower than the current highly valued price? I'm confused!

If I don't get answers I think I'm going to start using Xpresso like it's going out of style (because it is). At least I know what I'm going to get...

 

Okay... I reread some of the FAQ on this, and think maybe I'm understanding some of it.

The FAQ says:

I take this to mean that if I have 150 MM currently, then after the change I will have 150MM x Rescaled Factor. Also, it seems like if a current item can be purchased for 40MM, the new price will be 40MM x Rescaled Factor. Then, say the factor is 2.25 (just a useful integer). In this case, my 150MM would become 337.5 (ouch! my number just fell on a decimal!). So I'd get... drum roll........... 338MM. Wow. That item available for purchase would now be 90MM.

Now, with all that, we still don't know how much our current Xpresso is worth in terms of the reworked MM model (1:1 would be a rather bad exchange rate in this scenario).

Also, how they plan to "have new MM items at a much lower price" to make all the content available to everyone is quite a mystery as well. Just shooting from the hip here...

 

Glad I wasn't the only one who interpreted it this way. Whether our existing MM does get rescaled,I guess we'll wait and see along with the Xpresso to MM conversion rate

 

Hmmm - a hint as to the scaling factor? My Modern Single Family home Level 2 can be instant upgraded to L3 for 1096MM. Maybe it's just a bug.

 

Well I've never been a fan of these instant upgrades as you pointed out to me that you don't get the XP associated with the various stages of upgrade. But that price is ridiculous..thankful for the new confirmation layer

 

According to the German forum, MMs will be rescaled 1:10. For each still existing X-Presso, players will receive 5 MM (the 'new' ones, so 0.5 of the 'old' ones, which is about what they had cost until now).

 

I will not try to explain them as I did in the past as they are trying to communicate their explanation for changes they are making. Which is not necessarily any logical reason that everybody would see and agree upon, but rather personal views and preferences. Let them explain themself and sort out the mess they create. (It could be classed full time job and ....... they don't want to pay me ......... lol)

But one thing you could bet your life on: They do intentionaly hold information back. Only they close it into fancy words like "I will be as opened as I CAN." Or it could be re-phrased like "The information have to be released at an appropriate time and maner to suit the company policies" and similar expressions. It's so obvious I would not expect anyone to overlook that.

Well, I know it's not the main point, just mentioning the obvious so that you are not misslead into false beliefs. Realy open communication at this stage cannot be expected. They will just do the changes regardless and let you deal with them wheather you understand or not the reasons behind them. Btw BP has always been (while I have been around) very secretive holding info back, not just at this time.

 

The MetroMoney amount in the players accounts will also be recalculated

We have already reported this issue and will be fixed as soon as possible.

 

Thanks Wizz

For me, given this emphasis shift towards MM I would like to say a few things and I hope Sephiroth takes it on board.

I don't mind spending money on the game if it enhances my experience but given the ways to spend MMs on the game currently, most of them involves 'chance' with lotto tickets, residential improvements and mystery buildings which I'm less inclined to do

As for mystery buildings I'd be more inclined to buy mystery buildings if they were split into residential and mood buildings which are possibly priced differently too. Most of the real money I have spent on this game over the year I have been playing it, has been spent on the starter, production and first aid packs as well as the designer apartments. All of which has it's own benefits. I liked the recent addition of the chateau, given its numbers in terms of rent and revenue a la the designer apartment.

Personally speaking, I would like to see and would probably buy more premium residential packs that give better rent and revenue figures along with mood and power figures compared to the houses currently on offer.

Basically what I am suggesting is that there should be more ways to spend my money on the game that gives me guaranteed major benefits than just solely based on chance.

 

I can follow the logic of the re-scaling on the assumption that everything (existing MM stocks, future MM costs and rewards) is increased on the same scale. However, we really need to know what this scale is and how much MM we will receive for our existing expresso. Will this be officially announced in advance?

Another important issue to me is the mastery challenge. I have a number of buildings where I am half way through the expresso challenge. Will I get credit for the part of the challenge I have completed or will the challenge that replaces it take me back to zero? If it is the latter I will need to start burning expresso pretty quick! Again, will the changes to the mastery system be announce in advance?