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Some big ornamental buildings would have been nice. This is more of the same, not surprised, but a bit disappointed
Some big ornamental buildings would have been nice. This is more of the same, not surprised, but a bit disappointed
I understand the wish for ornamental buildings, but that's not within the scope for the Cosmetic DLC and also not part of our design philosophy for these packs, I'm afraid.
Looks like valentine's day or something
It's not themed to a specific real life event ;)
Of course, that's why I'm not surprised. You decide the scope, and you've got bigger fish/garum to fry right now. But it's something to keep in mind for the future.
Oh, it's not Anno 117 that's the reason here. Our design-approach for Cosmetic DLC was that we want it to be smaller objects that fit well into cities (or landscapes) to fill up any "empty" tiles and are as flexible as possible.
Most cosmetic packs have a larger structure included (e.g. the bath in the Steampunk pack, the large swan pond in the City Lights pack, etc.) but the rest of the pack focuses on smaller to medium-sized structures.
Large structures (the big ornamental building you mention) are very expensive in terms of workhours; that would mean that (considering the 5€ price tag for CDLCs) there would be VERY few of those in one cosmetic pack. Additionally, from our perspective, putting all this effort into such a huge building (let's use the Cathedral example) and then not having it have any gameplay impact would feel like a waste. There's also a good chance of it not matching player expectations: us adding/selling a huge Cathedral but not giving it any purpose (i.e. it not functioning like a church) would possibly upset/confuse people.
Our approach to cosmetic packs can of course change in the future, but for Anno 1800 we would not want to change our approach and design philosophy at this late point.
So does that mean with will get so alternativ skins?! 😀 I would also be quite disappointed, if it would just contain, flags, arches, gates, pavement and fences.
*just read your latest comment Where you answered my question But what would you say is the philosophy of these "Cosmetic-DLCs"? Some of them contain ornamental buildings.
Well... it's quite a colourful pack, that could also include skins, of course...
It's not about ornamental buildings as such, but about the huge ones that Seilofo was asking about. Sure, the rollercoaster, swan pond or the ice rink are larger structures (that's why there's also just always only one of them in a CDLC, if any) but I believe not quite what the original comment was about.
The philosophy is to provide additional, purely ornamental content with no gameplay impact. It's to provide players with more options to bring their cities to life and/or create themed areas (a Christmas market, an old town, etc.) in their cities.
Visual clarity is also important in Anno, i.e. players should see on first glance and without UI help what they're dealing with (that's a factory doing smelting, this place is cooking something, that's a residence, that's a public building, and so on). That also applies to the CDLC, where even larger structures should be clearly identifiable as ornamental in nature - the pond clearly is not a production building ;)