Greetings from your new CM - Fluse says "Hello"

I like many others would have liked to see something about changes and advancements and upgrades to the game. Let us be fair, anyone who has read the forum for any length of time would have noticed how many threads have been posted about "Cinema" issues. So I thank you Fluse for an indepth answer to the problem and giving guidance to how we can help solve these issues.

 

Thank you for the update on the cinema Fluse, however i have no interest in this feature having bulldozed it well over a year ago
I like everyone else is eagerly waiting for something new in our great game.

 

Hi Fluse,
I'm waiting impatiently for more info, you wrote monday that you 'd give us more in the following days.
I really hope that it won't take weeks before we hear something more.
And that it will be info that is important to us.
Like: new quests
new events
and most important... new land!

 

Totally agree!!! How many days are a few days...? I would say not more the ten!

 

Hello everybody,

I am going to reply to all your questions if I can and this is why I continued to answer the questions one after another. And the next important question after my last posting was the one with the cinema. I now learned that a lot of you aren't really interested in those background stories concerning the cinema. That's ok. But nevertheless, some players were asking about it and I wanted to give a reply. All the better that it seems to work now.

Before I start answering the next questions, I would like to ask you a favor: Please stay friendly in this thread. I refer to the postings of Birgi75. I understand pretty well that a lot of you are frustrated because the game doesn't offer interesting new features and events for our faithful long-time players since quite a long time now. But the condition of this discussion thread is a friendly atmosphere. Or at least a polite one. I am sure that it will work.

So here we are with the next topic: misseloe asked about the Easter event and this gives me the chance to clarify a bit why we have problems to change our existing events or even to add new events to the game.

In February, we started to have a deeper look into the seasonal events (you remember that we already faced problems during Christmas time). The devs revised the code base and they examined the implementation of special events in the game. We restarted the existing Valentine's event once again and this was part of the investigation. Everything went well and we had some hope that we could perhaps do some little changes in the code base for the Easter event in March. So that's what we did with the Easter event... and it broke. Major login problems appeared. What a setback! At least we now learned that the quest system for the event quests was more tricky than expected. So every setback is also of use to learn more about the game.

I hope you understand that we are very cautious to implement something new with so many uncertainties. We - the team in Hamburg - all know that it is hard to understand for you that it takes so much time for our colleagues to proceed with new events or features in RisingCities. But we cannot speed up and we are very sorry about it.

We also know that we are demanding a lot of patience from our long-term players! We are really really happy that you are still with us and that you are faithful! Especially because not all players are that faithful like anoukjoris stated about the players from the Netherlands who are thinking about stop playing.

So I would like to tell you that we also reached some steps successfully:

• The first one was that we were able to implement a new building - the TNT tower which we added to the game in the beginning of March. Yay! It worked without problems and this gives us hope that we can implement a new building here and then.
  
• The second step forward is that we are now able to repair the problems in player accounts with the academy. Some of you are facing problems with the education of specialists. We can now fix those problems manually in each account - if you have such a problem, please contact our friendly support team so that we can fix it via database.

What we coudn't do until now is fixing the academy bug itself. But the devs are still checking the code base of the academy to find out when exactly the bug appears. Unfortunately, bugs that are only happening here and then are the hardest to be fixed. It's already difficult to reproduce them because when you want them to happen, everything works fine... But we continue chasing them!

A lot of you are also asking for expansions and additions to the game. I hope that my explanations about the actual status quo makes you understand that we are not there yet. Like Noordbrabant said in his post, there was a time when there were new stuff every week and small and bigger updates. But at that period, a very experienced development team which originally programmed the game was working on RisingCities. Please re-read my post from Dec 9th concerning the actual structure of the development team.

We are trying to do our very best to make RisingCities fun again - also for our long-term players. But this takes its time.

Here are also some questions from the German community I want to answer to and I hope that my explanations above already clarify the situation a bit:

• Fluse, do you still work at Bigpoint? Yes, I do.
• Do we have to wait 1 or 2 years before we hear something from a new CM? No, I will regularly give you updates about the situation, but regularly doesn't mean every week but only when there's something new to report or to explain. Please check my previous posts where I described that I won't be around all the time here in this thread.
  
• Is the development of the game ongoing or do you only maintain the game? We are still in development like I described in my previous posts.
• Will there be a new land for players who already reached level 75 anytime soon? Not anytime soon, but as soon as the devs are ready to implement something new, we will check all user input we got from you, the players, and try to realize those ideas which are possible to be implemented.
• Will there be new levels to use the XP we already gained and that we cannot use at the moment? Please see my answer above.
  
• Will you realize all ideas we gathered in our idea pools? Please see my answer above.
  
• Will there be new buildings especially for the mountain area? Might be, since we are now able to implement new buildings.
  
• Will there be an adjustment of the production buildings? Not at the moment, because this would need a rebalancing of quite a lot of things.
• Will there be new events in the future? Will the bugs be fixed? Will there be the same seasonal events over and over again? I tried to explain the situation in my text above.
• Will the FAQ be done for all languages in the same way so that the moderators don't have to do them anymore? Our moderator teams are doing a really great job with creating the FAQs for our game features and events. A lot of players are really liking the way our board teams are explaining details for them and that they are focussing on their deep knowledge about the different user needs according to their nationality and mentality. We don't want to miss this awesome work from our moderator teams and until now we didn't get any complaints from them that they are creating the FAQs for our forums - on the contrary. Our board teams have full sovereignty concerning creating FAQs and we are delivering all necessary material for all of them. It is not in our focus to intervene or to regulate how they have to structure or present those information.
• Do we have a constant information exchange with you? Yes
• Will RisingCities be shutdown in the near future? No

I hope that you excuse me that I changed the exact wording of the questions here and then in order to have an answer to them.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers

Fluse

 

I don't understand, maybe I am just not intelligent enough. but really how long does it take to open up another playing field for the players that want to make there city bigger?? surely the people in the tech lab or some where can just give us some more land to play with who knows maybe some of us will part with some of our hard earned wages!!! or stop bothering you for a couple of months. Rising Cities more like Tiny Hamlets.

wrighty8 4658170 (maybe) just another number

 

Fluse you're awesome!

I'd like to thank you for your last answers. They were lovely to read! The cinema problems don't occur here in the Netherlands anymore, so you, your team and all the companies that give us the opportunity to earn MetroMoney are doing a great job!

Waiting for new land and quests is difficult, because the game becomes a little bit boring. You cannot challenge yourself anymore, because there is nothing 'special' left you can achieve. But I still believe that you and your team are doing the best you can. Sometimes you have luck on your side and you're able to fix some bugs, and sometimes you have bad luck. That's how it is.

I hope that you and your team are able to fix (all) the bugs soon and implement some cool new stuff, so we will be love the game the same as we did before.

I think a lot of players would like to see more land, but like Fluse said it isn't possible to implement it right now. There are still a lot of bugs in the game that should be fixed before we get more land. Fixing bugs however, isn't that easy... Every bug that you're trying to fix, can cause several new bugs and that's not what you want (I hope).... Give them some time, so they can do their job well.

 

Yes I understand the game has bugs, but when you are given new land to build on, and you clear the trees and boulders, and you place a building on it and another and so on. Does this cause MORE or in fact ANY bugs at all to the game ??? this is my question. not interested in the cinema or cant get MM or keeps freezing or cant log on ETC ETC. if new land was introduced how many problems would this cause ???

Wrighty8 4585170

 

Sorry Fluse for beeing unpolite. But I am at the point, where I will not log in anymore before I see new features on RC.
Most probably, I will have found a differnet game and have no interest to come back, if RC will ever get any new fetures.

 

Birgi75 i find it incredulious that after only a few months that you have exhausted all that this game has to offer.
I have been playing this terrific game since nearly the begining, and am now on level 75 and there is still a lot that i can accomplish, yes for those of us who are at the higher level a new playfield or an expanded one and new high density housing would be terrific among other improvements. how ever i am not about to abandon this game an i believe it still has a long way to go and a lot more to give yet

 

Nice message Fluse! I am happy with the information you give us now!

Hopefully you wont wait again some months to send a new message.

 

Thanks for the update, Fluse. A few remarks:

The TNT tower isn't technically any newer than some others, as it's just a reskin of similar promotional buildings that were available in some European countries. I wouldn't think that this would be difficult to insert, so I question calling it an achievement. If adding a building is such a delicate matter, there is a problem. We aren't hex-editing here are we?

On that subject, is it similarly difficult to insert the mountain assets that are missing? There were several decorations and one residence announced on other boards when the mountain was new that still aren't present. Getting these in-game would help a bit.

On manufacturing: I really don't think a limit of ten buildings is going to disrupt significantly the balance, especially if they are well spread out, like the current mill and farm at levels 65 and 75 respectively. That is well beyond them being necessary so they serve more as a boost and help in event time reduction, which is a fitting reward for progressing that far. How can adding bakeries at every turn be any better? I have nine now. Nine. That I have little use for without more farms (biker rally), so only six are built. The only reason I image this passes from a balance perspective is because three isn't enough to start with and having several more doesn't have much impact on supply. I understand the need to rebalance, but what is actually being balanced? I still view the removal of the two extra mills and increase of event needs as a means to increase BP's bank balance. Understandable, but it does not seem like game balance was the priority there, because it's a change from a one-time permit investment, to potentially several pay-to-win event/upgrade situations.

Anyway, it's still annoying that the mills were removed, especially with such short notice. I've said it before, but that created artificial scarcity. Prices have soared since then, and it has made expansion much easier. You can buy land for nothing now. It's pretty much useless to use MM for land now. Bringing back those mills now probably won't change prices much, but it isn't going to make it significantly easier to advance either given how much beams are needed, and again, they can always be made only available for those that want it, or higher levels that no longer expressly need it.

If balance were truly a concern, all extra mills that others had bought would have been removed and their MM reimbursed. If balance were a concern, everyone would have more bakeries to start with instead of the current chaotic distribution. If balance were a concern, everyone would have the same opportunities. The game can easily accommodate up to ten of any facility at most to cover varying needs/desire of players. After all, I have nine bakeries and soon enough, nine farms. How will nine or ten mills change anything significantly? It wont. Unless you're banking on increasing the player base (which that sponsor deal makes me think is likely), but even then global supply is only part of the issue. The game is still mostly limited by brickyards anyway. And yes, I have done some math, though probably not as much or with the same purpose as BP.

To put it plainly, no, I don't think up to ten mills/farms/bakeries will be imbalancing at all to the current size and events of the game. Brickyards are debatable, being the main bottleneck after mills. Breweries, fisheries and dairies can be borderline. Dairies are okay. However, the fact that production has generally failed to scale with the increase in the size of the game has been problematic.

If you want to talk balance, the exchange rate of MM to CC/PP/EP is absurd (that is, it's a rip-off: 899 MM for 6000 at best, so about 2€). Instant finish of production is way more expensive than paying MM for the required upgrade or event quantity needing that material. Capitalists are almost useless aside from events due to the price of goods, and PP and EP as rent circumvents the entire need to supply needs, which is a nice option, but can be kind of broken. Sometimes I wonder if RC isn't trying to suggest simulating a properly-functioning communist society. The ratio of power-plants to buildings is also a bit high, and an almost entirely linear increase in mood/power figures of building with level is, frankly, lazy. Such linear scaling where the next item costs more just because it is the next one is rarely good. Though that was ameliorated slightly with expansions, still, that some houses consume more than skyscrapers is silly. Shouldn't the bioscape home have next to zero consummation?

Commercial upgrade and fourth-level houses seemed to be kind of tacked-on. Cork and concrete were only used for new assets and level four upgrades, when they could have been applied retroactively to other buildings, using some concrete where bricks were previously needed, for example, to even out the demand, or even prevent access to upgrades unless you buy the materials on the market as a player couldn't manufacture them yet. Might give people a reason to make concrete. And it's not hard to see that the demand skyrocketed after those additions, and one extra brickyard did not one thing. But that kind of balancing is a pain and nobody ever wants to do it. Why does a little house need more tiles than a skyscraper at the equivalent level? I know RC isn't hyper-realistic, but that's a lazy speed bump, and that's all it is. Honestly, I don't think a lot of thought was put into these numbers, even being forgiving of some silly logic here and there.

RC has a lot to occupy one for now and obviously it can't expand forever. However, adding those missing elements and updating the booster rewards with priority — as I've said many times — will help quite a lot with the current situation without the need to specifically add new content, and more buildings will ultimately give more variety than new terrain, though I believe RC could handle one more to the west and an ultimate cap of 100, at the very least. Other things like utility feature, moving power plants and manufacturing facilities would help similarly.

I know code can be tricky, but I have to say I really wonder about how difficult this can be. That mood/energy bug still isn't fixed, and it's among the most important. I've noticed less problems when choosing the corresponding mastery, but it's still there and the RI's still cause problems. I've wrote about it before, but the Castle Carlson fix was quite unsatisfactory, as it seem obvious to me it was intended to be oriented the other way, but they simply couldn't figure out how to simply remove them from the player's fields before patching it.

Again, I'm not a coder by profession, but I've done some coding and I'm aware of what is possible and how badly code is often written. Frankly, to me it seems like it's either incompetence or a lack of resources for some of these long-standing bugs. It can't take that long to test patches. For example, the seasonal event changes you've mentioned: is there not a separate test server where these things were tested before simply going live with changes to the Easter event based on the Valentine's event? That's a month or so between. Of course, problems can always happen anyway… But still, they used to be changed around with no problems, so it must not be that complicated. I assumed it may just be a simple swap of code blocks or a variable, but all I can do is guess.

That the coders have to learn about the game to me suggests a lot of unfamiliarity. I understand that you said the team was split before, but now it sounds like it might be an entirely new team. It's understandable that apprentice programmers can't see what the code does at a glance, but is there anyone left that wrote it in the first place or at least knows the code well? And perhaps it isn't documented properly, as I've ventured before, which won't help them learn and could and even throw off the original writer. Of course even if the one who wrote it makes changes there can be unprecedented problems, but it's unsettling in a way to have to learn about how the game works by breaking it.

In fact, that sound exactly like reverse-engineering, which would actually explain everything perfectly. Sure, it's a good skill to have, but I do wonder about learning that on live games regardless of their priority. Sounds like it would be a form of hardcore on-the-job triage were it the case.
Also, forgot to mention the population bug as one that I wouldn't think would take so long to fix.

Anyway, I'll probably still be around for a while, since it is still amusing after all.

Thanks again.

 

Sorry, can't edit posts here, and there is a significant typo in my above post:

Should read "Breweries, fisheries and ranches can be borderline. Dairies are okay."

 

Arsuru you just amaze me everytime you post. Thank you.

 

Hello

It's sad, but I agree - fixing bugs first. Anyway, I will show you how we would like to see:

Greetings from Poland

 

ar that's a shame we wont be expanding the land would be nice while we wait to have a couple of new bulidings on mystery , ones on it are a bit dated or a new event

 

it's already a month ago since we heard something.
I hope the team has fixed the bugs in this long time and is now ready to implement something new.
They could try to give us a couple of plots extra on the left site of the city.
It has done before that we've got extra plots, then is was on the right site.

 

i remember those extra plots i think it was about 8 of them and nothing was announced even more levels for city hall and mayor levels could rise to 200, the same as they have in farmerama

 

yes, it was a very nice surprise then.
I keep on dreaming that we will be surprised again in the near future.
With a whole team working on the game, they should be able to produce something very soon by now.
My husband works in the ICT, and I don't think he'd still had a job when he couldn't produce anything in half a year.

 

that is probably a valid point anoukjoris