Screenshots (Pre-Release)

[Gregory_C 0]

Technically speaking we don't have new screenshots up today, but we do have a new video online

http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?/content/view/96/1/lang,en/

[JakeMD 107]

Looks good Gregory! The game is such an innovative piece it astounds me.

[JakeMD 107]

Page flip bug? I thought we got rid of those! :angryface:

[WARGOD 11]

Will there be alot of Tropical areas?I hate untropic and i want to build in a Tropical area.

[Metropolis3479 0]

There will be all types of climate

[princeblowfly 0]

Originally posted by: Lampala

Looking at the screenshots, it seems like there's no way to make an american-style city, and I haven't seen one shot of a suburb, and the suburbs are fun to make. No city builder yet has given much of an opportunity to create realistic suburbs (SC4 came close) and I thought this one would, but it looks like a purely european urban-only game, especially with the building styles. At least you can actually make european cities, unlike SC4! But I live in an american suburb so I just wish you could create that.quote>

Now you can understand what thousands of people from europe (like me) were trying to do with SC4 and couldn't!!!Really waiting for this game!!

[gabry85 2]

Originally posted by: princeblowfly

Originally posted by: Lampala

Looking at the screenshots, it seems like there's no way to make an american-style city, and I haven't seen one shot of a suburb, and the suburbs are fun to make. No city builder yet has given much of an opportunity to create realistic suburbs (SC4 came close) and I thought this one would, but it looks like a purely european urban-only game, especially with the building styles. At least you can actually make european cities, unlike SC4! But I live in an american suburb so I just wish you could create that.quote>

Now you can understand what thousands of people from europe (like me) were trying to do with SC4 and couldn't!!!Really waiting for this game!!quote>

Yes. Yes. Go ahead, build an European city with non-grid layout and w2w buildings. I CAN'T wait to see your CJ!!! *snicker*

[zwr100 2]

Ummm, aren't there some people with the demo out there?!?  I know that what you can do on the demo is very limited, but I bet you could still make some decent screenshots.  Let's see them!

[vil 3]

I was pleasantly surprised by the demo on two accounts.

It could actually be a good game.

Its nothing like simcity4 in feel, not really a SC4 killer.

Slightly less staged pictures than the official ones:

Skip avatar quickly please thank you.

Nice planet, lets find a city on the coast with hills and an island, errrrm ok; beach/volcano/plains is it? volcano then. There is no connection between apparent planet terrain and city map terrain whatsoever.

Those cities next to me could just as well be on the other side of the planet for all that ive seen. No "neighbor connections" just planet trade.

Mailand, eastern outskirt, you dont get to notice how limited the farmland zoning is. Good gameplay, just not very nice/realistic. Fairly crude overall but OK for a game IMHO.

Streel level. Verrry interesting. Not so very strikingly beautifull most of the time but OK. Can ride along in-car and climb stuff which is fun.

Postcard. Cute! The city edges are often disturbingly apparent. Some faking of surrounding countryside resulting in a pleasing horizon would be nice. Especially since the maps are fixed and no neighbors visible.

From the top. Notice the square lots. See the w2w limitations? The fields dont have to be bordered by roads if you do care.

Sometimes you can get nice pictures from hills, tall buildings or structures like bridges. I dare not show a bridge or edge connection from up close before the final version comes out. Don´t be spooked by the grey boxes in the streets and possible lack of detail, my card is fairly crappy.

Overall Jerome needs to clean up his act, and as for making a city builder game for rich people who dont have much time, lol.

BTW: tunnels, how do i make one (in the demo)?

[Omniassiah 3]

Tunnels are made with the Bridge tool, Hold shift to adjust the height of the "free" end.

[Rean2 10]

Dont know if this was posted before but wow!

[Ephemeron 17]

Ah, very nice screenshot. Allow me to be the first to ridicule it.

First take a look at the rocks in the bottom left corner of the picture. The colour and lack of vegetation clearly indicates a desert terrain. So what's with the farms? I'm no expert, but I don't think conventional agricultural techniques are suited to arid climates. This sorta implies that the terrains are just eyecandy, and there is no extra challenge in building a desert city, as opposed to a city in a temerate climate.

Those farms bother me. The fields are just a flat texture painted onto the ground. For some reason the lines on all the fields are in the same direction. And it seems that every farm field must have a road along its entire perimeter. Finally take a look at that highway interchange. Need I say more?

I want to like Cities XL,  but it looks set to be a good game, wheras it could have been a great game.

[gabry85 2]

Ahhhh, highways.

Building them was a pain in the butt. See that interchange at the bottom of the picture? Well, if you build your highway a pixel too long and need to cut it back a little (like in SC4), you have to bulldoze ALL of it, bridges included. Each interchange is like a 'checkpoint' of a highway strip, so you can bulldoze parts of your highway ONLY if you separate them with interchanges. Mistakes are very, VERY expensive here.

You have a limited amount of 'city links' which let you connect your city to the world. You cannot make a connection wherever you want: there are some spots on the edges where you're allowed to build roads with a big, eyesore stack of highway signs (hey, that's more realistic than floating arrows!). Don't worry, you don't need Region Play: you got a huuuuuuge planet, so you can survive if you give me $10 per month. Cash.

Each interchange is a ploppable 'building' and as you can see from the picture, there's nothing around it, apart from some trees which are part of the 'lot'. You're not allowed to build in that spot. Oh, and don't build on slopes. Do Not Dare Building An Interchange On Slopes. Please. Don't!

And last but not least, you can't place an interchange on a highway strip you already built earlier: you'll have to bulldoze it first. And you know what this means.

Speaking of slopes, we also tried their built-in 'terraforming tools': you have 3 static flat-terrain brushes (small, medium, large) which will take effect after each click, so forget holding down the mouse button like you were accustomed in SC4 for more precision as they have the same strenght. Each change on the terrain won't alter the texture, so if you're looking your city from above (like in 90% of the time), you won't notice the difference, it's a cool optical effect, but trust me, it's as flat as a pancake.

Well, so many nice treats to discover in this game. Enjoy!

PS: That was a nice city, too bad they deleted it.

[zombones 0]

ooh someone post some pics of the railways and subways and their stations and--

oh what? they're not in this game

nvm ):

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: EphemeronFirst take a look at the rocks in the bottom left corner of the picture. The colour and lack of vegetation clearly indicates a desert terrain. So what's with the farms? I'm no expert, but I don't think conventional agricultural techniques are suited to arid climates. This sorta implies that the terrains are just eyecandy, and there is no extra challenge in building a desert city, as opposed to a city in a temerate climate.

Those farms bother me. The fields are just a flat texture painted onto the ground. For some reason the lines on all the fields are in the same direction. And it seems that every farm field must have a road along its entire perimeter. Finally take a look at that highway interchange. Need I say more?

I want to like Cities XL,  but it looks set to be a good game, wheras it could have been a great game.

quote>

And all this is different from SimCity 4, which is generally considered by many in here to be a great game, in what way?

[MTA3479 0]

Originally posted by: Ephemeron

Ah, very nice screenshot. Allow me to be the first to ridicule it.

quote>

Gald to see you're back..........you might remember me, I'm Metropolis3479. These pics were taken a while ago,and are not final, so we needn't ridicule these ones. Look at the ocean, that is pretty good quality, and so is the background.

[JakeMD 107]

The way I see it, the rocks on the bottom left are beach, not desert.

[panthersimcity4 162]

Meh. I'm not buying the game if they're not including any of the cool transporation options in the single player version.

[MTA3479 0]

Me either. And don't worry, they're not.

[Attila464 2]

That screenshot doesn't really look like anything special... The interchange could be described as bland at best. Im not sure why people care so much about 3d graphics, City life had them this isn't much better and from my experience in city life 3d graphics aren't all they're cracked up to be. Not to mention of course the lack of single-player support in terms of transportation, buildings, patches/updates, and region play. If this was the beta and singleplayer actually got the full game this would be an immediate buy for me, but as it stands I'm not buying this game until it hits the bargin bin, which should happen rather quickly, just like city life.

[bixel 1,223]

Once this game is up and running NAM needs to hit this game in a big way. There are certain game preferenced limitations done for a purpose - but I suspect most of these limitations are not present in the solo version simply because the online mode is meant to be challenging. However the slope issues and transit development is not optimized and has a lot of room for improvement - perhaps indefinitely, I mean look how much time and content has been created for SC4 to make transit absolutely perfect. Clearly one of the tings I hope to achieve is the opened up development of custom work on the transit stuff - right now its gonna be "hard coded" or set seemingly in stone - but I believe as MC improves on it so will it also "open up". Since we already have curved roads and structures never seen (officially anyway) in SC4 this is already good news.

[gabry85 2]

Originally posted by: swat-medic

The way I see it, the rocks on the bottom left are beach, not desert. quote>

Actually, this map was labeled as 'Desert' in the beta. And that city was built during the beta.

[SimFox 802]

Originally posted by: bixel

Once this game is up and running NAM needs to hit this game in a big way. There are certain game preferenced limitations done for a purpose - but I suspect most of these limitations are not present in the solo version simply because the online mode is meant to be challenging. However the slope issues and transit development is not optimized and has a lot of room for improvement - perhaps indefinitely, I mean look how much time and content has been created for SC4 to make transit absolutely perfect. Clearly one of the tings I hope to achieve is the opened up development of custom work on the transit stuff - right now its gonna be "hard coded" or set seemingly in stone - but I believe as MC improves on it so will it also "open up". Since we already have curved roads and structures never seen (officially anyway) in SC4 this is already good news.quote>

I can only applaud your optimism!

I do also believe that something may be improved by community.

Yet I see two major obstacles for this to happen. As you have pointed yourself this would need MC "opening up", at least in solo mode. I, however, have serious doubts about that. All MC have done to date strongly indicate that they are very committed (and probably dependent) to Planet Offer, see it as a major source of revenue. Doing this "opening up" will damage their leverage (as they see it) to push people paying for it. They have repeatedly said that Custom Content will be free, but they also labeled as free those things people will get with Planet Offer. So it is free as long as you pay. Literally, as all the "updates" only apply to on-line mode. Once you off line - all vanish. Even if you still paying for Planet Offer. The matter of the fact is that those are, in effect, two separate games.

Opening flood gates of CC for Solo Mode of CXL would severely undermining "attractiveness" of Planet Offer. It would be an iquvalent of MC shotting itself in a foot, financially speaking, as I doubt the game sales alone will even cover the development costs.

Again people should remember that CC doesn't necessarily mean same for player and developer.

For player it means more options and longer entertainment benefit from same game.

For developer it means lost future revenues in official expansion packs and future game sales.

Originally posted by: beebs

And all this is different from SimCity 4, which is generally considered by many in here to be a great game, in what way?

quote>

Beebs, are you saying that we should compare CXL to SC4?

[Attila464 2]

The problem lets assume a NAM for CXL is made, only online players will be able to use it, and im not paying 5.50 dollars a month for people who on their free time to fix a game that the developers should have.

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: SimFox

Originally posted by: beebs

And all this is different from SimCity 4, which is generally considered by many in here to be a great game, in what way?

quote>

Beebs, are you saying that we should compare CXL to SC4?

quote>

IMO, the only fair comparison that can be made to SC4, is with the original game from January 15th, 2003. And when compared with that, things become strikingly similar.

[gabry85 2]

Originally posted by: beebs

Originally posted by: SimFox

Originally posted by: beebs

And all this is different from SimCity 4, which is generally considered by many in here to be a great game, in what way?

quote>

Beebs, are you saying that we should compare CXL to SC4?

quote>

IMO, the only fair comparison that can be made to SC4, is with the original game from January 15th, 2003.quote>

Agree.

And when compared with that, things become strikingly similar.quote>

I can think of at least eight SC4 Vanilla features that should have been in CXL (in my opinion):

- Region Play (can link cities without restrictions too)

- Flexible Zoning System (fast and easy, no need to bulldoze to upgrade)

- Mass Transit (at least buses, passenger & freight trains and subways)

- Custom Terraforming (and a good one too!)

- User-friendly Budget Tool (Taxes, Ordinances)

- 16x16m minimum lots

- Good building on slopes technique (although only for low-density lots)

- No unlockables (except special rewards)

But, on the other hand, CXL got:

- 3D

- First-person view

- Curved Roads (including bridges, tunnels and underwater tunnels)

- Rotate buildings (but snapped by roads nearby)

- Mass Placement Tool (?)

- Multiple Lanes Feature (?)

- Trading with other cities (mostly a PO feature)

And that's it. Please, don't say CXL doesn't have a grid as roads and buildings are heavily constrained by it. And I didn't like the resources thing, because it forces me to build utilities in specific spots limiting my creativity (ok, could this be fixed with terraforming?).

[Dexter 40]

I was going to buy this game, but after learning about the limitations, I'll probably wait for it to be reduced.

I also appears that every lot is limited to a set size, which makes less built up areas look sparse, and wtw buildings are out of the question.

How are we supposed to build realistic cities without railways and wtw ? Every European/British city has them as do American cities like New York.

[LordOscar 0]

Well I'm merging the original post into the main one. 

All screenshots were taken from the demo yesterday and tonight. Still much work to do, hmm?

--

Develop the potential of your cities! Use natural beauties and resources!

Bridges, curves and tunnels at the same time? Yes we can! I was not in building mode, this bridge-tunnel-thing was actually built.

Manage transportation! Face traffic jams! Find new solutions!

(...rather quickly )

A full 3D system for your eyes! State of the art graphics!

Transparent tunnel ground... never seen before, for sure.

Send beautiful postcards of your city taken at sunset!

I just *like* that Prothean Beacon look  Or Star Trek. Or Independance Day. Whatever.

Should you privilege a planned economy or a market one?

Getting bored of standard farm size? Try intensive agriculture.

Now you can design your city without restrictions!

A complete road system for all your citizens needs! What mayor will you be?

Definitely a minding-the-gap mayor here.

What will be your contribution to your new world?

Non-sunkable roads? Great idea And see the granny on left? She was walking on the pavement but not moving. Walking but not moving. Maybe a tribute to MJ?

Will you and your citizens be concerned about global warming?

Anyway that bridge doesn't care. He just likes grass more than you.

Photorealistic buildings bringing the genre to the next level!

Oh, by the way, it's an office building. I bet you thought it was a swimming pool or something. Notice the shadow at night time.

What type of industries will your budget sustain?

See that highlighted hi-tech industry? It's a "Fabrique d'essuie-tout". Which translates to "paper towel factory". USB paper towel, that is.

A huge number of buildings available!

No, I didn't build those houses one by one. They came like that.

No grid anymore! Shape and develop your ideal society!

Yes, this quite angular thing on foreground *is* a bendy road.

Create a modern empire and become a successful Mayor! Make your choices to be decisive for the planets’ future!

And what a great, clear and attractive User Interface to do so...

Establish yourself on persistent virtual planets!

But don't forget to buy a huge fan for your graphic card before. It was the first time my GPU automatically started its fan in emergency mode because of high temperature (it was 91°C in there). And just for displaying that planet. Optimized code for sure.

Visit other players' creations, chat and socialize! Trade, cooperate or challenge other players!

Ressource filters are quite an easy way to find new friends, don't you think?

[Ephemeron 17]

Originally posted by: beebs

Originally posted by: Ephemeron

I want to like Cities XL,  but it looks set to be a good game, wheras it could have been a great game.

quote>

And all this is different from SimCity 4, which is generally considered by many in here to be a great game, in what way?

quote>

You do make it sound like I'm being overly critical of Cities XL, when in fact I'm not. I contributed a lot to the forums, and I feel entitled to be a little disappointed. Secondly I will buy the game, and see how much better it gets once we (the Planet Offer players) are treated to a load of updates. However most of the development must be done by the community.

Granted, SimCity 4 has seen a vast contribution of custom content over the years, yet I retain my skepticism. I too would like to see CXL become as good as (or better than) SC4 in time, but I have a feeling that custom content (and its implementation to the game) will not be as 'accessible' as it is for SC4. I have my reasons for believing this, namely a transcript of a chat between Philippe and members of Sc4devotion to discuss the future of custom content for Cities XL. Part of it is shown here with the important parts in bold.

Originally from: sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5534.40

17:28 < RippleJet> RAISE HAND So there will be no way for us to mod the properties ourselves?

17:29 < PhilippeCitiesXL> RippleJet: that's not going to happen and I'll explain why

17:29 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND Sorry, it does make sense to provide us with the necessary tools...Maxis figured that out and SC4 is still for sale in shops.

17:29 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 1. We have an online side of the game and we need to make sure we have a good control of the buildings that are on the online game to avoid cheating

17:29 < PhilippeCitiesXL> cal: I never said we won't do it, I said we may do it

17:29 < barbyw> RAISE HAND: so it appears that the answer to David's question: "Will CXL offer to the user community tools, such as SC4's Building Architect Tool ("BAT") and Lot Editor, so that individual game purchasers can develop custom content?" is No

17:30 -!- diggis has quit ["http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client"]

17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Barb: not necessarly

17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> However, we cannot give you full control on the building properties

17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Let me explain you what we would like to achieve

17:30 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Ideally

17:31 < PhilippeCitiesXL> We would like players willing to go on the Custom Content creation to have the right tools (provided by us and other dedicated community members) to create Art Assets

17:32 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Once those assets are made, we would take them and place them in our level design pipeline with YOUR recommendations as how they should react in the Sim

17:32 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND: Without full control, how can we add content that fits in-game?  We submit it to MC for inclusion?  So you want control of all content made for CXL?  Do you realise the sheer volume of work you're opening yoursleves up for?

17:32 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Then, we would take care of its distribution to players throught our website and our dispatcher system that allows players to download and manage their buildings

17:33 < PhilippeCitiesXL> cal: Yes we do

17:33 < PhilippeCitiesXL> cal: But there is no other way aroundquote>

(Although this was almost a year ago, I don't think that the focus could have shifted away from Planet Offer.)

For me it pinpoints the issue as the centralisation of custom content distribution - that is that creators will not be able to mod their own buildings. The finished model must be sent to MC for them to mod the building themselves. The main reason for this is that it avoids cheating in the Planet Offer. But it has the implication that the only custom content in the game must be approved for Planet Offer, if they aren't going to provide us with tools to mod the buildings ourselves. It concurs that MC would not allow for anything that significantly alters the game's functionality, such as a mod to a transit network.

It begs the question: why can't they allow for more custom content in solo play? Here's a later part of the transcript - judge for yourselves.

17:50 < Glenni> RAISE HAND: you really should try splitting the online part off from multiplayer somehow

17:51 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Glenni: we should know quite soon if the whole thing won't work at all: and if so, for us, it's a matter of a few weeks of work to remove all the Online part which would prevent players to get full custom conrol on thigns

17:51 < zero7> RAISE HAND Just separate building install directories.  Online and offline.

17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Cal: We don't necessarly want models: we will provide buildings over time ourselves! We just know that some of you want to participate on creating custom buildings and we would like to consider it as part of our art pipeline

17:52 < Warrior> RAISE HAND But then Zero (Sorry forgot your name) some people might move buildings from one directory to the other

17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Exaclty

17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> That's not obvious really

17:52 < Glenni> simple

17:52 < Glenni> block all custom content on the online one

17:52 < Glenni> there are numerous games where this works

17:52 < PhilippeCitiesXL> But you would have to provide a way to differenciate them

17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Look at it this way:

17:53 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND Glenni no, as the online game would probably be more interesting....I'm thinking Trackmania

17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> By promoting custom content ourselves in the game, we get everyone happy:

17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 1. We get player happy with more content

17:53 < Warrior> RAISE HAND Are cities transferable from single player to online? So I can start a city in Single player and thn deicde to go online with the city?

17:53 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 2. We get custom content makers happy as they can see it in the game

17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> 3. We get ourselves happy because we are providing some more content and additional features to players which should result with better results

17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: no they aren't

17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: No cheating

17:54 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: In Solo mode, you can accelerate time while not in the Planet Offer

17:55 < PhilippeCitiesXL> If you could upload a solo mode city, what would forbid you to accelerate time, get a lot of money and get online with it

17:55 < callagrafx> RAISE HAND In other words, we're providing the content, giving you longevity but we have no control over the modding and distribution of that content...what about IP?  grey area

17:55 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Cal: IP is another issue we would need to talk about

17:55 < Warrior> RAISE HAND Then could you make a file type that is only comaptible with single player mode and not mutliplayer will not recognize it?

17:55 < PhilippeCitiesXL> We would put your name as the author of the building

17:56 < PhilippeCitiesXL> Warrior: no, that's the same point: you would get people tweaking files and would have quickly some not authorized buildings in the online sidequote>

I have not given up hope yet. I am interested to see how it works out.

[edcase2k4-thugangel1983 1]

great spoof LordOscar...

although, this is a rather sad state of affairs we are seeing with so much dismay for a game we once thought showed a lot more promise for the 2 years before the beta, and had such a strong community behind it and contributing towards it. back then, its good points were made obvious, and its shortcomings weren't known.

the disappointment and negativity floating around isn't even close to the epic proportions of the response to SC: Societies (and for good reason!), but it's not good for the game'a publicity. but what can we do when we HAVE to be honest though with ourselves, eachother, and any potential buyer?

i want CXL to become the next great city-builder to replace SC4, but i don't know what more i can "give". i contributed an insane amount to the citiesxl.com forums over 2 years and now it's completely in MC's hands. creating an echo-chamber is useless as they've heard exactly what we all want so many times in those 2 years. it's out of our hands. what more can i give to help them make this game better than SC4? other than my money for the game and ongoing payments for a planet offer subscription? (not that my measely financial contribution alone will make the game profitable and continuously-improved) . i can't make a million other people buy this game.

i've really done all i can as one single person for the last 2 years of my life to help this little company along the way to create something epic and loved...