The Purpose of Sim City Socities

[Adono86 0]

Ok, we all know that Sim City Sociaties is a bag of rats...

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2 for £20 quid, that’s my excuse for buying it. World In Conflict, couldn’t find another decent game so i got Sim City Sociaties. Completed the first, started the second thought it was terrible. So... after about an hour i sent it down to my Dad who is nearly 53 and plays Sim City 4 religiously and has done with 3000, 2000, and Classic as well as Sim Tower. Dont ask about Sim Isle, i think i did ok on that but geez it was hard. Anyways, he refuses to play it...

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My only hope is that EA have got it into their heads that Maxis are the best at City and Simulation genre’s. However they weren’t the first to produce a fully 3D environment for a City building game, and with The Sims and The Sims 2 and Spore, they opened new doors to get Sim City 5 perfect. Or will there be The Sims 3 before that? Who knows...

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Sim City Sociaties...well it’s a kids game. It’s a game developed to create a new creation of followers, for example, Transformers in the 80’s, The new Transformer movies. We all forget, Most of us started playing Sim City in the early 90’s or 80’s. On the Amiga or Atari, Some the SNES. Were a die hard cult and they must be stupid to not know that, but if they make a game that is as difficult to a new comer as Sim City 4 was... well, they are not going to expand on their die hard following. Most teenagers these days have had a P.C since 2000... not since the early 90's, they will think it's a terrible game because they just dont understand it whatsoever, or they will go back to their x-box and all that... So...what do EA do... they put Maxis through their paces. They get their 3D working environment just right. They put some other fools on this new Sim City game. 3D, New aspects, not too difficult but those aspects will put them in good stead and good training for when the big one eventually comes out, seven or eight years down the line.

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The game sells, the game was never meant to be a big hit, it was meant to attract a new audience and get them hooked. Also... EA thought that the sales would be better than what they’ve hoped due to the die hard cult following also buying it and putting it through it’s paces and no doubt crucifying it... but they've just released an expansion... so it must be selling well. 

Now, Sim City 4 Deluxe sold really well when Sociaties was released. Why? Kids see a sim city, the buy it...cheap enough... very difficult and challenging... gets them used to the other aspects of the game that was missing in Sim City Sociaties. Like Water and Power management. Education and Transport management. Not scroll, click and plop but plan, decide and manage to attain.  Sim City is an art, it always has been and always will be. Depending on how you look at it, Sim City Sociaties is an art, just not as we know it.

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For all the Sim City Die Hard Fans out there, play the game. Get used to the new aspects, get used to the 3D engine, See The Sims walk around and update your PC to accomodate the maximum settings that the game needs. Because you may as well for as we all know that when Sim City 5 comes out, it’s gonna piss all over the maximum settings of Sociaties. It's gonna piss all over any other city simulation game, Those max specs tthat you will probably run SC5 on it’s lowest specs.

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If i was EA, i’d create an expansion for Spore, leave it be... then it’s a  toss up between The Sims 3 or Sim City 5. The Sims 3 will be more profitable because it's the only game of it's kind, and with it being called The Sims... It’s advertising Sim City...  Sim City 5 is coming. It’s gonna be in 3D, it’s gonna be tough, it’s gonna be hard, it’s gonna accomadate all the newbies, it’s gonna sell well... just it’s gonna take some time. They need to get it absolutely right with the competition they have at the moment. And they will. Sim City Sociaties... well it’s served it’s purpose... It’s a test run and a feeler to a new audience, basically saying to them... "So you wanna know how to play Sim City, well play this, then when you compleate all of this, then your ready to play".

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There are other examples of this... C&C uses a new engine before Red Alert comes out to exploit it with all the added extras (Although it should be the other way round!)  You dont ruin a brand name without testing it on prototypes first. I’m sure i read in a preview back in 2006 that Sociaties was not like Sim City but was aimed at attracting a younger audience or a new audience. 

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So there ya go boys and girls. I’ve just played it tonight for the first time ever i’ve sat down and really tried hard. Lasted 5 hours just got a city of 10k, half the map filled... It’s tough, it’s hard... but it’s about creating a type of city... i’ll play it again further down the line... but i think for the meantime i will be heading back to Sim City 4 to develop my artwork.

Oh and one major possitive about SCS, the music is so romantic... reminds me of a girl i'm so in love with... shame she's dating a fat rich pig!

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Cheers!

 

[rushman5 33]

w00t

[Adono86 0]

el complay?

[Adono86 0]

el complay?

[GMT 389]

there must be a reason why she's dating him...

ohh, and Transformers did it just the other way around. the new movies are to give the old audience what they've always wanted: "real" transformers, not to attract new kiddies running stores in for new figures. the time has come for anime loong time ago...

[Adono86 0]

yeah it's cos he as more simoleons than i do.... :-(

[Robstersfive 0]

No offence man but that is a really bad reason why SCS was made by EA, if they need to do that to test a 3D engine then EA/Maxis are in seriously big trouble. tbh i hate the sims yeah but you can still tell even with sims 3 a lot of work gone into the game for the fans....

Simcity they knew had a small die hard fan base that not big enough for EA profit needs, so whats the solution? how do they make simcity a cash cow.....dum it down and make it pretty and sell to the masses, there no loyalty to gamers now, why i miss the 90s so much! its all about fanchises and mega bucks. Sims is a cash cow, they put the effort into the game because there enough people to buy it

sad thing with simcity is even the people that had stopped playing it around sc2000 came out the woodwork to show there disgust at SCS, it was regarded as biggest insult to the history of gaming everyone slated it even non simcity fans! and i was physically depressed when i saw it!!! never even felt that way about a game before it surprised me how sick it made me feel

still feel depressed thinking about it, EA are on a decline even there NFS series is a joke now and sims 3 more of the same and spore was a bit of a flop with the reviews

truth is Maxis so busy making spore simcity left to rot with EA, Spore just another sim endless addons and stuff packs, loads was cut from the game i wish didnt even buy spore got spooorboerd with it

[JanYpe 17]

Haven´t we had this discussion 10 times before? I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day.

[PrinceofIce 0]

Sim City Societies is a lot like Spore. No not in game play of course. But they screwed up both games in the same way. Both were made to sell to an audience about 13 and younger. Let me tell you I'm 13 and I hated SCS. Disgrace to the Sim City name. Spore was okay but were no here to talk about that.

Yeah sure this discussion is rampant in these forums but maybe EA will listen if we whine a lot? Maybe not -.- The only thing we can hope to see is a real Sim City 5 thats a Sim City 4 on crack. They don't need to start from total scratch. Make the outline SC4 but just make the graphics better, make a little more designs, more of a little of everything and this community will make the mods do the rest okay Maxis?

[Robstersfive 0]

Making SC4 on crack for sc5 would be just as pointless. If i remember correctly sc4 was a little disapointing until rush hour came along and not to mention all the user created stuff as it mostly just sc3000 made again. When you look at sc2000 and sc3000 both were major upgrades to its predessor...sc4 really wasnt much of an upgrade in comparsion in my view. But dont get me wrong sc4 still brillant game but sc3000 was done the best hence why its ported still to this day. 

if sc5 is to be a hit they need to have it as major upgrade again that interest old fans and brings in new fans. To be honest if SCS would have been fine with me if it just had normal gameplay of simcity RCI and zones, even if it was easier least it would have broken simcity into 3d world.

I reckon if someone actally just modded the correct gameplay into scs it would be more fun to play?

maybe EA will learn from this i dont think sc dead just yet and from wii and iphone release they seem to aknoledge the old simcity gameplay is the best.

As much as we blame EA titled mill were just as arrogant to change the gameplay that worked!!

[timecatcher 0]

Urm Cities XL...

TC.

[araveugnitsuga 0]

Societies was marketed for people younger than 13, people who played sc4 and wished everything was plopable, there weren't challenges and it looked really cool really fast.

Spore was marketed for people who could believe the ads that made it look like the greatest game ever, this of course was tweaked into a waste of money waiting for 20 expansions to make it decent instead of making it good from the beggining

[johnsy 2]

Bring back features of the oldies?

It sounds like "old gamers" seeking respects from the "younger pros". I played many classic titles such as SimCity 2000, The Need For Speed (the very first NFS title), B&W, Contra I, II, III, etc. I watched so many classic cartoons such as the so worshiped G1 Transformers, back in my childhood. Hey, remembering all of those are just for serving my sentimental nostalgic needs. "The good ol' days" and stuff, nothing more, i moved on. The new James Bond movie is bad, the Transformers movies is so unoriginal, the latest C&C is such a shame for its predecessors, the later NFS titles are yada...yada...yada... it will never end despite how much we wept over destroyed franchises due to "commercially successful giant companies with seemingly brilliant ideas."

Sure it is cool if the new SC could have the waterfall terraformed just like in the previous SC title. But come on, the graphics, the customizability, the simulations, the variables, everything is more complex nowadays. If you wanted to say that SCS is for lazy and spoiled new generation of gamers, i agree. And so do many other great titles out there.

I would like to compare this with my other hobby, Flightsiming. SC community is by all means, no way to be compared with Flightsim community in size. Thus Microsoft could make its FS title a constant cash-cow by releasing newer titles every 2-3 years, leaving the time gap between sequential title for the community to develop ideas to be implemented in the add-ons or mods. The ideas will then be used to enhance the new title to be released. Sadly, ever since it took out the "life" out of Flight Simulator, that is, the "simulation" spirit, and categorized it into "game", the community support has unsurprisingly decreased ever since.

Sure, game market is sweeter by projection, they are fresh, young, and got a lot of growth potential. However they are less dedicated and does not have brand loyalty as we do. Not long after the latest title, the FS:X is released, it invited huge amount of brand new young flightsim gamers, not flightsimers. Community message board are then filled with complaints, nagging, repetitive typical ignorant questions, unnecessary typical-gaming-competition that ended in fights, and a lot of bad stuff. It hinders the more loyal and dedicated hobbyist to return to the title. After the recession hits the global economy and Microsoft, they announced to stop this world's longest and oldest running legendary software title. Simply, it is deemed unimportant to their business anymore, in contrary to the X-box 360 games. EA is not alone in this, giant companies are usually very good at destroying franchises.

SCS is nothing more than just a catastrophic way to utilize a hardly built franchise that is easily acquired by money. Simple rule, easy come, easy go. Another game with a "Simcity" title on it. EP does not always a sign of success.