Demo version released ~ For all those that can't wait

[SimFox 803]

Graphics are only realistic from a great distance, though... But if you move to the street level it ain't all that pretty no more...

And being on a street level, as well as possibility of arbitrary placed roads, is the main (I would say whole) attraction of 3D,the whole point of it...

[joenobody 0]

Things don't look so bright for CitiesXL. There is an ever growing sense of animosity between the beta testers and MC. With details being released about the game versions and what will not be included in the single player version of the game (like mass transit), and what will only be available in the online content, people are already beginning to feel ripped off, and the game is not even on sale yet. Watch this space, CitiesXL might very well be in the running for the worst game release of 2009.

[paisis123 1]

well what we have learned? having a third party game company make a MMO building sim game, they should teamed up with EA the makers of the Sim city.

like you need the Planet Offer just for extra content. this is not WoW, runescape, or maplestory.

  it shouldnt have online game play. sim city 4 and socitiys dint have. but thats why we have

Simtropolis for?

work with me people......CXL shape it up. delay the game and make it better. if not major game companys, like games radar,

gamespot, etc. will give bad reviews.

Watch your language and caps.

[neminem88 0]

Oh come on... You're being grumpy old farts as far as I'm concerned. To me you come across like a bunch of amateur mechanics who have converted their garage to upgrade their chevy '76 and don't want to buy a new ferrari because of the time and energy they spent on their old car. It works beautifully and it's perfectly tuned (the chevy), the advantage you have now is... you can have both! it's not like a new game costs you the same as a new ferrari.

Even for one small simple example, citiesxl has an ingame chat window. It's not MMO in the sense that you build one city together, but there's plenty of other people around you can trade with, and talk about strategies and tips while you're playing.

That said, I have experienced a couple of issues in the demo. I hope Monte Cristo has picked these up and will smoothen out some of these rough edges, but I think the car metaphor still goes: for the first 1000 miles or so, your new car won't perform at the best of it's capacities yet either.

[MTA3479 0]

Originally posted by: neminem88

Oh come on... You're being grumpy old farts as far as I'm concerned. To me you come across like a bunch of amateur mechanics who have converted their garage to upgrade their chevy '76 and don't want to buy a new ferrari because of the time and energy they spent on their old car. It works beautifully and it's perfectly tuned (the chevy), the advantage you have now is... you can have both! it's not like a new game costs you the same as a new ferrari.

Even for one small simple example, citiesxl has an ingame chat window. It's not MMO in the sense that you build one city together, but there's plenty of other people around you can trade with, and talk about strategies and tips while you're playing.

That said, I have experienced a couple of issues in the demo. I hope Monte Cristo has picked these up and will smoothen out some of these rough edges, but I think the car metaphor still goes: for the first 1000 miles or so, your new car won't perform at the best of it's capacities yet either.quote>

He's right you know. You need to at least let CXL flourish for a bit, before you reprimand it. Maybe it won't be as good as SC4, but there is no reason it shouldn't. Keep in mind, SC4 didn't have mass-transit at the beginning. SC4 Rush Hour solved that, maybe Monte Cristo will do something similar.

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: SimFox

Graphics are only realistic from a great distance, though... But if you move to the street level it ain't all that pretty no more...

And being on a street level, as well as possibility of arbitrary placed roads, is the main (I would say whole) attraction of 3D, Hell the whole point of it...quote>

3D was easily one of the most sought after features for a sequel to SimCity 4.. this is the best they can provide for a game with such large maps that is still usable on the majority of todays computers. They could have gone the Crysis route and made it for top end only, but that would put them in such a corner in terms of potential userbase, the decision wouldn't have made sense.

[SimFox 803]

Hm, beebs... I don't understand... Do you disagree with my assessment of graphics?

Or do you agree with it, but say "well nothing better could be done anyway".

[Mctittles 0]

Originally posted by: beebs

Originally posted by: SimFox

Graphics are only realistic from a great distance, though... But if you move to the street level it ain't all that pretty no more...

And being on a street level, as well as possibility of arbitrary placed roads, is the main (I would say whole) attraction of 3D, Hell the whole point of it...quote>

3D was easily one of the most sought after features for a sequel to SimCity 4.. this is the best they can provide for a game with such large maps that is still usable on the majority of todays computers. They could have gone the Crysis route and made it for top end only, but that would put them in such a corner in terms of potential userbase, the decision wouldn't have made sense.

quote>

Funny you compare them to crysis in terms of graphics scalability.  The PC I'm using can run crysis at 1600x1200 res, 16Q anti-aliasing, and all settings on ultra with perfectly smooth frame rate.  On the city render side, I can run flight simulator X with settings turned most of the way up and that is doing real time flight calculations while rendering entire cities and moving cars.

With cities XL at 1600x1200 high graphics checkmarked and anti-aliasing TURNED OFF it runs like crap.  Try to go to their test city you can visit in the demo (the only one you can visit).  Go there and zoom out a bit so you can see a lot of buildings on the screen but they still have detail.  Now, try and pan the view.  I'd like to see if anyone can get more than a couple frames per second there.  Cities XL is beyond Crysis in terms of hardware requirments, but renders a lot less.

[zombones 0]

Originally posted by: neminem88

Oh come on... You're being grumpy old farts as far as I'm concerned. To me you come across like a bunch of amateur mechanics who have converted their garage to upgrade their chevy '76 and don't want to buy a new ferrari because of the time and energy they spent on their old car. It works beautifully and it's perfectly tuned (the chevy), the advantage you have now is... you can have both! it's not like a new game costs you the same as a new ferrari.

Even for one small simple example, citiesxl has an ingame chat window. It's not MMO in the sense that you build one city together, but there's plenty of other people around you can trade with, and talk about strategies and tips while you're playing.

That said, I have experienced a couple of issues in the demo. I hope Monte Cristo has picked these up and will smoothen out some of these rough edges, but I think the car metaphor still goes: for the first 1000 miles or so, your new car won't perform at the best of it's capacities yet either.quote>

Your metaphor doesn't apply here.  Or maybe it kind of does, since cars are the only way to get around in CitiesXL

And I can chat about city building on SIMTROPOLIS

[Omniassiah 3]

Originally posted by: neminem88

Even for one small simple example, citiesxl has an ingame chat window. It's not MMO in the sense that you build one city together, but there's plenty of other people around you can trade with, and talk about strategies and tips while you're playing. quote>

But is that one Chat window worth 9 bucks a month? If you guys send me a Dollar a month to a paypal account I'll setup and manage a 256 man Voice server so you can just talk to the people playing any game you want with you. MC Has already shown that the only way to make it worth while to pay for PO is to leave things out of the SP game.

Now I have played many Pay to play games and the question I always ask my self before paying is does this game inheriently suffer if it was only me playing in this world? For example I play EVE-Online, I pay my monthly fee happily because I get all the updates for free and the game just plain would not function well as a Single player game.

So far I have not seen anything that MC has offered to make me answer yes to that question. And since they are pulling things out of the single player game to add value to hopefully turn my no to a yes it does not bode well for myself to buy the game period.

[Mctittles 0]

Wow...no need to bring demographics into this. I would imagine there are a lot of game you have played that were made by "non-english speaking" people and enjoyed. Come to think of it, America hasn't really been the largest producer of video games in the past. So maybe your upset because you are disappointed in not getting what you expect but there is no need to make wild speculation on how country origins play any part in this. Pretty out there man...

[dabadon5 295]

I think everyone here on ST should get together and create our own city simulation game. Heck, ST and similar sites turned SC4 from a bore fest to something magical.

If everyone got together and put thier brains together, we could make a next gen city sim that embrasses anything EA or Monte Cristo could ever make.

If only if we had the money and we all lived in the same town, if only.................

[danner 2]

OK I did get carried away, and I am making a clear sincere apology for that. However, that is a sign of my frustration. I keep finding out all these things about the game, negative things and it annoys me even more because Monte Cristo once again has kept it quiet and with a month to go before the game is released they decided to inform us that there is thing awesome thing called the Planet offer, to get the best things in the game we will have to pay for it on a monthly, bi monthly, tri monthly basis... Heck, why would anyone want to do that? Why cant they just put out an EP like the Sims2 have done and now the Sims3 will be doing the same. Also I have heard that when the game is released in October, we only have buses as a means of public transport. To get the rest like the railway, subway, etc, you will have to use the Planet offer. My cousin got the beta version. he said [doesn't like the game] , there is no city management as such, not like the best ever city building game SC Rush Hour. I have been playing SCRH for years now. And will stay with that game for many years to come. So to those who will buy the game, I hope it's worth your money and time and I really hope you enjoy it because in the end, if you want the better things in that game, you will have to pay for it. SC Rush Hour rocks

Edited lanugage - abcvs

[RegisterST2 0]

Originally posted by: neminem88

Oh come on... You're being grumpy old farts as far as I'm concerned. To me you come across like a bunch of amateur mechanics who have converted their garage to upgrade their chevy '76 and don't want to buy a new ferrari because of the time and energy they spent on their old car. It works beautifully and it's perfectly tuned (the chevy), the advantage you have now is... you can have both! it's not like a new game costs you the same as a new ferrari.

Even for one small simple example, citiesxl has an ingame chat window. It's not MMO in the sense that you build one city together, but there's plenty of other people around you can trade with, and talk about strategies and tips while you're playing.

That said, I have experienced a couple of issues in the demo. I hope Monte Cristo has picked these up and will smoothen out some of these rough edges, but I think the car metaphor still goes: for the first 1000 miles or so, your new car won't perform at the best of it's capacities yet either.quote>

I don't thnk I agree with this.

A more appropriate analagy (in my own little opinion of course) is everyone here thought they were helping to design a ferrari.  Input on the engine, the interior, the exterior, etc.  MC then went into the garage and brought out a pinto.  So naturally, people who spent a lot of time helping design the ferrari are a little peeved.  Tuning the pinto won't make it a ferrari.  It won't even make it a modern car.

And as for the small simple example...that's nearly the whole MMO portion of the game.  It's not a small example, you just described almost the entire MMO experience.   The only thing you missed is walking around in other people's cities with your avatar.

I'll be honest..from the very beginning of the CU forums, I had no interest in the multiplayer aspect MC was going to force into the game.  But even though I never intended to buy it, I was curious to see what they would come up with.  After having seen their final implementation of the MMO side of their game, and seeing how uninspired and pointless it was, I still have no interest, but now I wonder what they were doing for over a year as far as their PO goes.

Anyways, just my opinion.  Everyone has one so I figured I would post mine.

[rsd6000 8]

Originally posted by: LordOscar

I played the demo up to 22k inhabitants. Here is my opinion.

++

- great graphics, some are photorealistic

- ability to zoom in or out is quite impressive

==

- music is just ok

- traffic animation on streets feels good

- avatar creation is nice (but I don't really know what to do with it later in the game)

--

- no city management except two taxes level

- quite simple economy

- graphics bugs everywhere (roads don't connect, cars pile up at end of streets, blue and white "rays" to the sky, and so on)

- many technical issues ; been forced to restart the demo 6 times in 2 hours

- no micromanagement, no real background for the city, no details, just "low", "medium" or "high" things (or red orange green)

- repetitive buildings

- UI is clearly not finished and quite static

- no city ambient sounds

- no real help from the councellors, they seem to only say "money is flowing" or "people are leaving"

- to me this game is clearly not a MMO. You only trade with people (or trying to) and chat with them.

I think I won't buy this game.

quote>

wow - that so bad

[princeblowfly 0]

I think there is a big dissapointment among all the sc4 fans and players. I mean, we have been waiting for the next Simcity game based on SC4 basics for soooo long, and MC said that they could give us that!! The thing is that, at the end, they couldn't. So here is everyone wondering why we again believed in a company who was just making promises; the answer is that we badly wanted the Simcity of our dreams......I still have faith that one day (maybe i will be still young enough to spend time in front of a computer) we will get that game. but , in my opinion, I don't think that game will be CXL. Sorry guys, Im dissapointed too.

[Milju Delem 0]

Originally posted by: dabadon5

I think everyone here on ST should get together and create our own city simulation game. Heck, ST and similar sites turned SC4 from a bore fest to something magical.

If everyone got together and put thier brains together, we could make a next gen city sim that embrasses anything EA or Monte Cristo could ever make.

If only if we had the money and we all lived in the same town, if only.................quote>

no need to be in the same town, imo internet is efficient for sharing information... I don't know anything about programation but would make a donation for such a project. If every member gives 10€ then you would end up with        3 350 890 €  just to  develop the game, with no salaries to pay... just a though.

[neminem88 0]

After reading some of the reactions here I can understand why some of you are frustrated with Monte Cristo. I was quite impressed with the demo. I have been looking at the potential the game has, but I have not been playing Simcity the past few years, and in fact I had gotten rather bored with it and never felt inclined to make a metropolis in the game. I hope maybe after a few months of improvement some of you might be interested in Cities XL after all.

Some of the positive things that struck me:

The game has resources and a supply/demand system for them that influences price and because of that your budget, so it requires balancing to get your city right.

It also gives statistics for things like amount of jobs available and percentage of unemployed citizens, giving better insight into your city.

Then the home-job pathfinding is implemented (and shown) in cities xl, showing they (intend to? I don't have enough insight into the actual mechanics of the game) simulate traffic much like Rush Hour.

You can walk around in other people's cities (with your avatar, I think). This feature is not implemented in the demo, but it's clear this is their plan with the "visit city" option.

I have been looking at what this game could be like and am quite impressed, and I hope you don't intend to judge it without really knowing it (although there might be Beta-testers among you). That said, I respect your opinions...

[CDI_spy 6]

I dunno about you guys, but I'm now way more excited about Beatles' Rock Band than Cities XL. At least we know there isn't much Rock Band can do wrong.

Maybe we have quite high expectations for Cities XL (expectations that Simcity 4 + the ST community set for us), but Monte Cristo has not fulfilled any of them.

[jsieczka 19]

Review of the Cities XL Demo

These views are solely based on the Demo version of the game

The bad

Zoning by wealth.

Single size lots

curved roads are made useless do to the single sized lots. The lots do not fallow the roads which then leads to large amounts of unused space.

An inability to build on most slopes

Graphics bugs galore

Government controlled leisure facilities that cost a fortune and make no money, aka bowling alleys.

Government controlled trading, why is a mayor controlling the selling of heavy industry goods and then bringing in money, talk about pay to play government.

A complete lack of intricate controls needed to run a city.

A very formulaic game that once you figure out the formula the game becomes far too easy.

The city is completely static and is best described as plop and stop. Your city basicly does not evolve over time and is very stagnant.

Bridge and tunnel building is a pain and fails miserably at times (resulting in a major cost to fix)

Memory leaks galore and general instability

The Good:

Postcard view from far away looks good

[Tropod 144]

Well given people just constantly lloovvee comparing CitiesXL to SC4...........

SCS(SimCityscape) was well, rubbish when SC4 was released, and there was never any real-time exchange of anything. What MC is offering with CitiesXL is I believe a leap forward way beyond what SCS even came close to. And yes, while it may not be eveyone's cup of tea, nothing every will be. Can't please everyone.

[el_roy1985 0]

They have a LONG way to go if they plan on releasing a decent game. Seven days for the demo is a joke too. They could at least let you play the very limited demo until release. Then you could follow the updates that could possibly make the game worthwhile. Instead, the people that get into the demo early, see this very unfinished game and lose interest. Then they forget about the game between the end of the trial and the games release.

I really, really hope they can save this game from failure.

[Lancezh 0]

Ok i had this question for quite some time and at one point i thought it was solved but i don't get it to work somehow:

The thing is i would like to import Citizens of level 1 and/or 2 do fill the jobs i create in the city to somehow "bypass" the population limit of 22000 so i can at least build more industry, offices manufacturing and whatnot.

What i did was:

1. I traded in 2 tokens of lvl 1 Workers. Sucessfully i might add, i have 2 Workertokens OVER what i need.

2. I created the Jobs... 1000 Jobs are open into he according Lvl. (Crosschecked 1000 times)

3. Now, i heard to make those people from the outside work in my city i'd have to build hotels.. .AHA! that was the mistake so i built motels / hotels from the Businesstree to got those people into my city (not holiday hotels, since that would make no sense right). Ok, here goes.. i built 1 nothing happend. Built another 4 nothing happens. Still two tokens over... 1000 open jobs and nothing changes except everything is going bankrupt. I even built those hotels next to the places that needed jobs. They are not really profitable and no change to the job situation at all.

I don't know what to do or wether its just not possible in the demo... please.. HELP me =) PLEASE if you don't i post pictues of cute little cuddly cats and stuff. Don't make me do that.
 

[LordOscar 0]

It's a long-time known bug. Once imported workers are in your city, they do nothing.

[Lancezh 0]

is it an occasional bug ? or NOT at all working as is ?

[GlobexCo 33]

I think that you need to import workers when you want to build a megastructure (blueprints).

Click on the C icon (money) a go to the second page. There you can find lots of informations about what you should build. If the disoccupation is high, then build new industries; if there are too many free place to work, then you should create new houses. When you can see disoccupation 0 and disponible palces 0, you can wait for money or try to expand again the city. Also remember that hotels create new jobs for level 2 people.

Go to menu - trade. Here you can find things that your city needs. Try to export resources that you have and import what you need.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Lancezh: your topic has been merged here.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

  Threads merged. 

[krostik 0]

What I liked and didn’t.

 

Positive +

 

1. nice graphics
2. Online Trading Feature (tokens)
3. Avatar
4. Exelent budget and layer menu. All at the finger tips.

Negative –

1. To easy, no real strategy to make money.
2. Building User interface is too tedious; I have to click back and forward on sub menus.
3. City utilities. Ok I am not sure if its just demo but I noticed there is no area coverage on any utilities. I build one school in the corner of the city and it covered the whole city education. Its not realistic, people don’t drive from one end of the city to another to get to school. And im not sure was there limit on students capacity?
4. Utilities again. They all looks the same as residential and commercial buildings with the same lot size. I deleted my hospital without realizing it which brings me to next point.
5. Zoning. To upgrade zone from first level to second I have to demolish my current existing buildings and remap it with 2^nd level zoning.
6. Zones all the same size . The whole city looked like 3x2.
7. Workers. Why different classes ? Reason I gave 5 minutes to City Life. Why not based on level of education in the city.

 

I know it was just a demo, that’s just my opinions, I am not going to mention bugs because like I said it’s a demo and game is not released yet. It got potential since it will be online and the content will be fresh every patch “I hope”.

I am going to wait and see how it will evolve.

Please post your experience and opinions on Cities Xl.

[deanej 2]

I finally started playing the demo, and I have a couple of questions about it.
1. How do you pause the game?  It would be handy to be able to pause so I can survey the city and make changes, but I can't find any button to do this.  Where is it?
2. I read that there is a city created by MC that can be viewed.  How do I view it?
3. What are the requirements to be able to build highways?  I wanted to try them out, but the button is greyed out, with no text saying what I need to do to unlock them.