EA Suspending Marketing of SimCity

[JudgeDredd]

You could be correct Jomni - but still - it seems there's "limited" play with such small areas.

That's not fact as I haven't got the game - I'm just going by the videos I've seen. The areas to build on are very small and seem to fill up rather quickly - and after that you seem to be "firefighting" issues.

I don't know...I just don't like the idea of my gameplay area being reduced for no apparent reason. It seems a limit for some other underlying reason than "gameplay".

The players do not seem to be sitting on their laurels mind you - but making a game a clickfest by speeding it up, reducing the gameplay area and making things happen very often doesn't necessarily make a good game for me.

Again - I am only going by the videos of gameplay I've seen on Youtube.

I think if they were to get rid of the requirement for servers I may well jump in - issues and gameplay area size aside because I used to love Sim City.

[Yskonyn]

Mind you that most of the livestream vids I have seen play the game on turbo speed constantly.
Something I only do when I am waiting on something to finish building or getting a certain amount of cash.

Simcity is not a clickfest by any stretch.
It has a pretty relaxed pace. I am allergic for clickfest games like multiplayer Starcraft. :)

I agree on the small mapsizes though.
EA/Maxis claim this was a business decision as the game is mainstream and smaller mapsizes ensure most people can play the game. They claim the level of 'sim' (or tracking of individual units) in the game is at such a high level that bigger mapsizes will affect performance significantly.
They also stated they are, in fact, looking at increasing mapsize later on, though.

For now it doesn't bother me that much. It makes the game pretty hard because planning is paramount for keeping things efficient later on in your city, where before you could just spread out.
But it does detract from the 'city' feel of the game.
CitiesXL, for example, has a pretty similar way of approaching your city buildup, but has far bigger maps to play on. In that game you can indeed create huge metropoli.

[JudgeDredd]

^ok...thanks.

I didn't know there were varying speeds. All videos I've seen have played at what seemed to be a very fast speed and I didn't see any where the gameplay speed was mentioned or tinkered with

[Barthheart]

Yeah there are 3 speeds, turtle, llama, and cheeta. I play mostly on turtle and llama. These are speed settings you can change on the fly.

The small maps bug me too. I want the sprawling metropolis' of the past games.... maybe some day.

Game is still fun to play. I have never had a crash from day 1, just lucky I guess. First few days I did get booted and could get in to play, but never lost a city.
Now I can log in ever time, no problem.

This is not a defense of the DRM or EA's business practices... I just like the game they are trying madly to wreck.  :P

[JudgeDredd]

What is the appeal between this and Cities XL then?

I mean Cities XL is £19.99. From what I gather it's been around a while so "might" provide a flawless game. There are huge maps. The graphics (from screenshots and videos of both titles) appear superior to Sim City.

So why Sim City over Cities XL Platinum (if at all) given the considerable price difference also?

[undercovergeek]

What is the appeal between this and Cities XL then?

I mean Cities XL is £19.99. From what I gather it's been around a while so "might" provide a flawless game. There are huge maps. The graphics (from screenshots and videos of both titles) appear superior to Sim City.

So why Sim City over Cities XL Platinum (if at all) given the considerable price difference also?

the brand?

[Yskonyn]

CitiesXL has a pretty bad reputation.
It was originally developed by Monte Cristo, but they went bankrupt pretty soon after the first CitiesXL game was released. Rumours have it that it was because of server maintenance costs for the online component of the game (they pioneered the inter-city relationship Simcity has now too).

Anyway, the publisher aparently kept on 'working' on the game. It's in parenthesis, because the game still suffers from some annoying bugs to this day and the 'Platinum' version is nothing more than a building pack which every modder could have done too.

Support has been slow with only a few patches divided over all titles, never adressing the glaring bugs that hamper gameplay.

Soltan Gris, a modder, has created a bugfix mod and that is included (or going to be, I can't remember) in a last patch in fact.

Mind you, the game is playabale. Most bugs have a workaround.
The interface is a bit cumbersome, though and your cities feel a bit sterile. At least I think so.
Nevertheless its a fun city builder and looks gorgeous, zoomed out. Besides, its the only recent city builder where you can actually create huge cities!
Trains are not in, though. Trams are a mod, as are ferries.
So the public transportation side of things is pretty lacking.

[jomni]

Does Cities XL have the "complex" interrelationships (due to the per-sim tracking)... and depleting resources that Sim City 2013 has?

[Yskonyn]

No it does not.

The whole inter-city stuff pretty much never got finished or as featured as they originally intended due to them going bankrupt.

You can trade cash and resources with your cities and with an AI corp called Omnicorp.
Resources don't deplete as far as I know, but certain maps lack certain resources.

[JudgeDredd]

What's the big deal about resources depleting? Having to move from coal to oil to windpower or, worse, being at the behest of someone else (in this multiplayer environment) selling you energy?

What about when water is depleted? Iron (I think I saw that in a video)?

And if you are not playign multiplayer? What happens when resources are depleted?

[Bison]

Does Cities XL have the "complex" interrelationships (due to the per-sim tracking)... and depleting resources that Sim City 2013 has?

Yes it does and it does it in very much the same manner as Simcity.  You have a class of people required to work certain types of business, industry, jobs.  It is driven by numbers not necessarily joe sim here and there but x number of lower income jobs, middle income, and high income jobs.
 
TBH I don't recall off hand if the resources deplete like they are supposed to in Simcity.  However you have a greater array of overlays to determine various factors influencing the city.  And of course there are elements in Cities you do not find in Simcity like there are elements in Simcity you do not find in Cities.

[mikeck]

Just read and article on foxnews.com tech section about SimCity...apparently, there is an issue with the programming so that the People will always go to the closest job, fire trucks and such cant find destinations if its not a direct route, etc. People have to build cities with one road shaped like a snake so the firetrucks don't get lost.

[Bison]

I haven't experienced a fire truck getting lost, but I have experienced a fire truck stuck in traffic and/or taking a round about way to get to different locations.

[jomni]

I have seen my buses going around in circles instead of a longer route.

[Bison]

I think the going in circles has to do with the idea of each individual sim.  So if you have a bus stop, rather than the kid sims being there at the stop they are walking around and the bus circles and circles and circles until it picks them all up.