The Monte Cristo team just published a post-mortem look back at last month's launch of Cities XL in an attempt to keep players in the loop on the development plans for the city-building game. According to the letter, the teams plans "to regularly improve Cities XL with interface & ergonomics improvements, gameplay balancing and, of course, new content and functionalities."

The post also announced that the first content pack will be published in the upcoming days. The patch will introduce a set of medieval buildings inspired by Shakespearian England, three new maps (including Rio de Janeiro), additional Megastructures, and more. The next two content packs are already being scheduled. You can read the full letter after the jump.

As Cities XL was launched on the 8th of October, we believe we are now in a position to properly analyze how things went and share with you our ongoing efforts. We plan to send this kind of status update on a regular basis for the Cities XL universe to inform you on the players, the cities and Monte Cristo's development plans (we might even include some exclusive info!)

So, let's cut to the chase and take a look at the last two weeks...

Launch

The launch of a game is always an exciting moment for everyone as we finally have the opportunity to submit the result of our continued and sometimes painful efforts to our players. But this particular launch was even more special: not only did we kick off the Solo mode, but we also launched the Planet Offer simultaneously.

Overall, we are quite happy with our launch, although, despite all our efforts, the best intentions in the world and a month-long beta-test, we could not avoid the curse of all MMOs: when thousands of players connect simultaneously to the game for the first time, the unexpected is bound to happen.

During these first two weeks, and to provide for any contingency, we published 6 patches and hot-fixes as quickly as possible in order to improve the game experience. The main aspect of the game we focused on was the trading system, which had to be completely reexamined (and we are still working on it) in order to cope with the massive amount of transactions. Numerous improvements have also been introduced in the game.

One of the best things about the Planet Offer is that it allows/forces us to be so proactive, as we are confronted in real-time to the problems and needs of the players. Thanks to this situation, we plan to regularly improve Cities XL with interface & ergonomics improvements, gameplay balancing and, of course, new content and functionalities.

Community

But the very best thing about an online game is having a community of active players! When we decided to write this article, we wanted to mention some of the main events of the launch, but there was a problem: there had been hundreds! Whether it was new players discovering the game little by little and surprising us by their innovative approach or 'veterans' from the demo/beta noticing the latest additions and improvements, each day saw its share of emotions and surprises.

Here are a few of the key events of these first weeks:

• The city of ‘Complex’ , created by Khéops, one of the very first to reach 4 million citizens (and still keeping a nice design).
• The daily journal of a player, on YouTube.
• The fascinating City Journal of Kisteran, promoting the merits of the city of Veginhought on Pollux
• The never-ending agricultural plains of ‘Cocorico Canyon’
• Auriga's latest city (creator of the late ‘Coast City’, featured in a screenshot on our home page)
• The spectacular City Journal on the destruction of ZofoorCity.

We also saw the creation of groups of players: mayors trading together at preferential rates or fighting against Omnicorp's monopoly by creating associations or 'guilds'. We are really thrilled to watch this trend develop quickly and will follow it closely; rest assured it is giving us ideas for the future...

These activities happen across all the websites and fansites that host the discussions of the Cities XL mayors. This week, we will publish on the Web a list of all the fansites and major forums to help the players in the game.

Coming soon

Today, we are happy to offer a game that is both stable and brimming with life, but this is only the beginning for Cities XL! We have just added the Blueprints, and in the upcoming days we will publish the very first content pack. This pack will feature a set of medieval buildings and more new content. Currently being tested by our teams, it has already completely changed the aspect of some of our test cities... (you can learn more about its content in our previous news)

The next 2 packs are already scheduled, we will keep you posted very soon! In the meantime, you can read the previous news on this subject again.

These last weeks have been full of events and adventure and we hope the coming weeks will be just as exciting! See you soon for the next status update after the release of the first content pack! In the meantime, we will end this entry with a great picture of our 'city of the week': Sant Cerberias, a beautiful, welcoming city of 150,000 citizens, created by KleinThe3rd...

Happy building!

- The Monte Cristo team