Single Player

[KeanoManu 42]

I guess i'm not alone by being only interested in the single player part of the game?

Unfortunately it seems like we'll miss many interested features by not going online. We know we'll miss the planet, which is a big disgrace. No regions neither because the economics system they wrote for the online-part of the game doesn't fit for regional play. And now we've seen in an interview that we'll also miss the trade.

From an interview with Games Industry ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xl-junkie ):

Q: Given that subscription is such an important part of your strategy, how will you encourage players to subscribe?

Jerome Gastaldi: There is a lot in the MMO system that we're putting in place that will be a motivation for players to subscribe. For instance, there's the fact that you're going to be able to subcontract things like garbage recycling for your online city to other people, so if you want to have a really nice beach resort with no negative impact from pollution, you can subcontract all the dirty work to other players. You can't create an idyllic paradise island in the single-player game if you have to have a recycling plant, for instance. So that's the first driving factor.

Is that fair?

Which other features will we be missing in single player?

Will you still buy the game even if the single player part have less features than the online?

[Ntq€310 1]

Personally i think single player will be fine. Now dew to the fact that Multiplayer is multiplayer your going to see some features that can olny work for multiplayer, and there are more features possible with it.

So yes, yes i will still buy it because those features could really olny work in multiplayer.

[Follarch 326]

Of course i would buy it for the singleplayer. I'm all about singleplayer, and I don't understand why you cant play online without a subscription. If I have the game installed and have an internet connection, then wouldn't you just have to click on the "multiplayer" button? oO?

I think that the game would be as great as ever with just single player game play. I'll be satisfied.

[Lampala 1]

I don't really want multiplayer in a city-building game. It seems like it would not be 100% my city or region. I agree with Archean too, and I think single player people would feel left out if any features were missing.

[KeanoManu 42]

Originally posted by: Lampala I don't really want multiplayer in a city-building game. It seems like it would not be 100% my city or region. I agree with Archean too, and I think single player people would feel left out if any features were missing.quote>

Yes, that's how i feel too. We already know that we will miss out on the planet, and the interview that i was quoting in my first message are implying that we'll miss out on parts of the trade in the game. It says we won't be able to trade with garbage in single player.

I also agree that multiplayer isn't really something for a city-builder game. I, and i guess many with me, wants 100% control over my city and region.

At the moment though, we don't have any regions at all neither. It's a huge step back to the SC3000-style.

[Ntq€310 1]

If you want complete control over you city just use single player, no problem, no issue. Besides that people in multiplayer cant control your city, you control your city. Now people can see your city, and you can do things with them like trade and such because there are multiple cities, but i dont really see the point that you can have 100% control over you city, if you want to can build a powerplant, a water plant, you can isolate yourself even.

Now i can see your point that such things as Trade should be avalialbe in single player to handel things you dont, and to be realisitc also, but preety much you can do that anyway because unlike simcity it's just going be one large map, so there isnt that much of a need for regions.

[Sandvich 0]

Singleplayer works best here. Multiplayer would be fine if it was free, but subscriptions have dissollusioned me on this.

[wannabe123456789 0]

Don't worry about there being know regions. The maps will by 100x100 kilometers, about the size of a standard SC4 region.

[gabry85 2]

Originally posted by: wannabe123456789 Don't worry about there being know regions. The maps will by 100x100 kilometers, about the size of a standard SC4 region.quote>

Wrong! A single map in Cities XL is 10x10km (100 sq. km): 6 times bigger than a SC4's largest city-tile (4x4km, 16 sq. km). Regions are needed in this game. How on Earth can you build all those ski & beach resorts, farms, airports and many other nice thingies included in the game in a tiny map like that?

Just a friendly piece of advice: I really, really, really recommend you all to visit CitiesXL.com (and maybe also take a look at the countless threads on regions) from time to time, because after reading many posts here at ST, I'm afraid people are a bit confused about some facts on the game. Screenshots aren't all.

[Lightz 0]

So play multiplayer? Only reason I can see people upset about this are if they plan on illegally downloading it and not receiving a legit cd key.

[panthersimcity4 162]

Personally I don't like playing multiplayer... especially if you have to "subscribe"... brings back horrible memories of The Sims Online.

I'll just stick with single-player.

[His Divine Hand 244]

Originally posted by: Lightz So play multiplayer? Only reason I can see people upset about this are if they plan on illegally downloading it and not receiving a legit cd key.quote>

No, I think most people are angry that after buying the game, they then have to pay a monthly subscription to fully utilize some features that are already available in SC4 (i.e. trading services). You do realize that multiplayer is a "pay to play" feature, correct?

Personally, I think this is following into the same sort of mistake that cost EA in SCS; MC is not quite understanding the market they are marketing too. They seem to placing a lot of faith in their online play and customization capabilities to sell the game. Unfortunately, I don't think MC sees that the core features that have made SC4 as popular as it is are necessary to get the most out of the market. Not to mention in poor economic times as this, a game with added costs beyond purchase may find difficulty in the market.

[Aprillion 0]

I want to see statistics of how popular multiplayer will be (how many paying customers will play online)..

After some time, if popular, i would pay for one month to be able to see all the cities around and then just come back to offline (only if there will be new mods). If not a business case for MC, i hope they will enable all the features for paying (single player) customers!

[Evillions 552]

Pay to play. This is JUST like World of Warcraft. Same type of system. Shame.... Addintionally, I don't think that mutiplayer in a city-building game doesn't feel that electrfiying, or exciting. Only one player and that's it.

[Xhenn 0]

I think Multiplayer will work best if people have to specialize, i.e. classes in other MMO's. Specializations could be Residential, Commercial, Industry, Entertainment, Infrastructure, Environmental, Parks & Recreational and so on. That way we are all dependent on each other. Also, pay to play will fail miserably if MC does not have a dedicated team to regularly add features and insentives to the game. Not sure what insentives will keep me paying though, maybe reaching certain milestones will get you titles and new buildings/structures that are functional. For example, if I specialize in Environmental I would collect trash and after a certain amount I would unlock a "Landfill Gas collection system" that will allow me to convert Methane to energy then sell the Electricity.

I agree that taking away features in single player to get people to play in multiplayer is a very BAD idea. Single player should be a sandbox type game giving the player ALL available features. Cooperation and entrepeneurship should be the driving force of Multiplayer. Again regular updates and adding features will be KEY to pay to play multiplayer. If they can make this work It will open up the MMO market to bigger and better ideas of what an MMO can be, it shouldn't be restricted to the RPG genre. I wish MC best of luck on this endeavor. I will be a paying customer If they can manage to pull this off.

[Aprillion 0]

Originally posted by: Xhenn ... Not sure what insentives will keep me paying though, maybe reaching certain milestones will get you titles and new buildings/structures that are functional... quote>

Personally, I don't want to pay for inferior product (not having all buildings unlocked the first month is inferior for me) - so this system would prevent me from buying the first month of online playing. But if one month was for free, then it might probably work...

[Xhenn 0]

Originally posted by: aprilboy

Originally posted by: Xhenn ... Not sure what insentives will keep me paying though, maybe reaching certain milestones will get you titles and new buildings/structures that are functional... quote>

Personally, I don't want to pay for inferior product (not having all buildings unlocked the first month is inferior for me) - so this system would prevent me from buying the first month of online playing. But if one month was for free, then it might probably work...quote>

 

Agreed. I am a regular in the MMO scene and had assumed the 1st month would be free. If in fact there will be no free 1st month I will not try it right out of the box and will wait a few months to see if does succeed.

I personally feel that no developer has any business trying to create an MMO type game if they are not including the industry standard of "the 1st month free."

[Elukka 0]

Multiplayer is something I perhaps would try, but no guarantees. If there is no region analogue in the single player, well, no. I don't want to go back to single cities with no connection after SC4, so I'd just keep playing that.

What's up with the subscription thing? What are we paying for? The reason MMOs have subscriptions is because there's a huge cost involved in running servers for hundreds of thousands or millions of people and constantly developing content. With conventional games, however, it's usually the players hosting the games with dedicated servers. Why can't this be done in CXL?

[MayorCain 2]

Sim city societies rebranded the sim city brand in order to carter for all types of demographics, as EA didnt want just a polished Sim city 4 with true 3d graphics.

Will Wright said sim city 4 had worked itself into a corner as it only really sold to previous fans of sim city 3000, any new fans who didnt quite understand the concept of the game either found it tedious, or too hard to play right off the bat. Sim City societies aims to shed off this skin by opening up a new type of gameplay that all types can pick up and find easy, yet still TRY (but failing im the most part) to cater for 'us' IE the core sim city 4 fanbase.

What i beleive monte cristo is trying to do is tap into the MMO boom with something new, rather than a fantasy rpg with a customisable avatar character which is pretty much the dominant genre in MMO's, so theres nothing new to offer. What could eventually happen for MC will alienate its CORE fanbase (us) with the online mode, by forcing is to pay for it, and by making such amazing and well received features online mode only. those features which can only really work for online mode... is it so hard to have region play, but with BOT cities? ie cities not controlled by players but by the pc in a simulation, similar to SC3000. fluctuating markets, migration of people, goods and services, etc could all be plainly simulated by the CPU, when not in online mode. and in a online mode PC, if a particularly powerful player makes a stupid mistake cutting down the forests to make loads of money for his city, the rest of the game world feels the burn with increased global pollution, and less building materials, so building costs go up.

if these features were implemented in single player but watered down, then no one would be alienated, but what i think monte cristo might fall into the trap off is basically make a shell of a game for single player, and give us the whole oyster only if we subscribe to it. this is dangerous, as an online city building MMO has never been done before so it could work like a charm or cost them dearly. I certainly hope its not the latter, but i certainly dont want a 1/5 of a game for

[dasilva 3]

Hi MayorCain,

I won't try to convince you on the fact we have been building a Core City Builder game that will have a high end value for a Solo experience because we've been telling everybody since the beginning that Cities XL is first a solo city builder game with all the features we already described (MPT, Curved and Non Grid roads, bridges and tunnels, Zoning and/or Plopping the way you prefer, a real economy inside your city, etc...).

I'll simply let you either wait for the game to be reviewed by the press, or released and let you get a demo to make your own opinion

Or even maybe, you could just rely on whatever Dirk will tell you about the game he spent an entire afternoon playing on...

Then, we'll see if you could or not trust us on the way we communicated to you all: the core fan base. (which by the way, I recall you I'm a proud member since 2003 but with another nickname )

[+Guest]

Again thanks Phil for that comment. I cannot WAIT for Dirik's review... did he test out features that were not 100% complete as well?

[MayorCain 2]

Thanks dasilva, I appreciate your response. Make no mistake, I am going to be buying Cities XL for sure. The last thing I wanted to do was to sound like a person wanting to flame about your game, I have been religiously following Cities XL since the first ever screenshot of the mini cooper in a bustling 3d city surfaced on here. I love how youve listened to our ideas, and know your listening to us and valuing our input, it is certainly a rare thing for a developer to do. Most just make a game, market it like crazy (not naming names...EA!), and expect us to like it.

I loved the walkabout feature you had in City Life, and its a real way to 'be there' and its a killer feature for any city builder to actually feel like a citizen in a city hes created, and since the graphics are so gorgeous, its a new level of amazingness for me!

I'm not a developer myself, so I could not comprehend the decisions going in to making this game and why certain bits are taken out, some are watered down, and some are taken and turned from an acorn into a huge oaktree.

As the developer... your in the know. So, would an AI controlled city in a large continent (not a planet, too much processing oomph may be needed) in single player be difficult to implement? This way some of the really cool features can be implemented in single player that were before impossible to implement. Or is my scope of this game way way off and am I looking at more of a Tycoon game rather than a city builder.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

That is encouraging news. If Dirk can confirm this, I'll be completely convinced, and my likelihood of buying CXL would be increased. While I think you would have no reason to lie about the game, it's always best to have a second opinion.

[KeanoManu 42]

Originally posted by: MayorCain

As the developer... your in the know. So, would an AI controlled city in a large continent (not a planet, too much processing oomph may be needed) in single player be difficult to implement? This way some of the really cool features can be implemented in single player that were before impossible to implement. Or is my scope of this game way way off and am I looking at more of a Tycoon game rather than a city builder.

quote>

Even better.. Link player controlled cities to eachother in Single Player.

[BurroDiablo 222]

Originally posted by: KeanoManu

Originally posted by: MayorCain

As the developer... your in the know. So, would an AI controlled city in a large continent (not a planet, too much processing oomph may be needed) in single player be difficult to implement? This way some of the really cool features can be implemented in single player that were before impossible to implement. Or is my scope of this game way way off and am I looking at more of a Tycoon game rather than a city builder.

quote>

Even better.. Link player controlled cities to eachother in Single Player.

quote>

Indeedy. MP will be nice I reckon, but a SP Region/Planet mode would be a godsend.

[lazor 0]

Originally posted by: Elukka

Multiplayer is something I perhaps would try, but no guarantees. If there is no region analogue in the single player, well, no. I don't want to go back to single cities with no connection after SC4, so I'd just keep playing that.

What's up with the subscription thing? What are we paying for? The reason MMOs have subscriptions is because there's a huge cost involved in running servers for hundreds of thousands or millions of people and constantly developing content. With conventional games, however, it's usually the players hosting the games with dedicated servers. Why can't this be done in CXL?quote>

If I understand correctly, City XL's online component is persistent, which is why you can't do player hosted games like your typical games. And I'm assuming a lot of the calculations will be server-side to prevent cheating, which is going to be CPU intensive, and thus, expensive.

[Asheroo 53]

I personally think that the single player side of CXL is amazing! B)

I do accept that there will be the PO, and the reasons for it too, and it should definitely bring something new to the city building genre and to online play.

But, I think to be honest, the only reason why some (like KeanoManu) are complaining about the PO is because of no regions yet in single player. But yet, we still may get regions in single player at release. By the way KM, recent previews, and even Dirk (KM, trust the right people, which one of them is Dirk) said that there will be trade in solo mode, and you can trade with your own cities in single player.

(Philippe) DaSilva, can you please give us some answer on regions??? Please??? It should definitely clear a lot of things up, and if it's one of your surprises for the game, don't make it one, it's just too risky. But please, give us a decent answer on regions!

With regions and trade, we should be able to trade between our different regions and have each region defined as 'one' and not each map as 'one'. Also, the terrain should be continuous throughout the region and the transport networks properly connected up and for us to see the whole region in low poly (and possibly more???).

[dasilva 3]

Both of those two points are still in the discussions. We just can't answer right now because we still haven't find the right way to bring that in.

[parrotti 11]

its all about the money

[PColumbus73 0]

Judging by what dasilva is saying, and by Dirk's commentary. Cities XL sounds like what is being advertised for online play will be available for single player. What would really sell me is the availability of landspace in the game.

I'd like the idea of building several cities in a much larger space of land. The SC4 regions are great, but I'd like just a little more room to spread out my towns. I like the idea of creating a small country (or at least a state or provience of a nation) and trading internationally or with neighboring states.