Soldyne's Demo Review

[soldyne 111]

I will start with the good since that puts a positive spin on things:

THE GOOD

The token system they have designed is interesting and is certianly a different way to make a CB game.  we are all very used to the RCI modle of SC4 but this token system, I think, adds another level of complexity to the game which is something many of us are looking for in our simulations.  I do think that it still needs some balancing to make it more effecitve.

the music that was playing was quite nice.  it was soothing and relaxing.  There was only 1 theme playing throughout the entire demo though and it got annoying after a few hours.  I assume there is only one piece of music because it is the demo so I won't list that as a bad point.

the roads and zoning are pretty much as advertised with straight, curved, and angled roads.  there are a lot of different types of zoning as well as ploppable buildings.  there are a lot of different kinds of roads, more than vanilla SC4 but not as many as with NAM, but, NAM is third party custom content so it is not a fair comparison.

I did like the tutorial as it showed the very very basics of how the game works.  there is still a lot of details that the tutorial does not show, but, I guess that is up to the player to discover while building their city which is a good thing.

other than a bumpy start with installation, I had a very smooth gaming experience.  I had no crashes, no glitches, no freezes and I played for at least 5 hours straight until I hit my city limit.  I had a few FPS issues but that was due to my system being old, not the fault of MC.  even with an old system the graphics still looked good, but, there were a few graphic errors I noticed which will be discussed in a subsequent section.

THE BAD

I understand that this was the demo and perhaps some things were left unfinished or just not up to full spec, but, since I have nothing else to compare it to, I will have to be honest with my observations.

Trading

If I don't speak of anything else then I must speak to the trading.  the trading has lots of bugs and lag.  the lag was so bad that I never really knew what contracts I had started, what contracts I had canceled and what resources I had available to trade with from second to second.  I even tried exiting the trade window and reentering but that did not refresh anything.  when I selected a contract to start I got no confirmation messages and nothing updated.  sometimes it would work and sometimes it would not.  sometimes it would update 5 minutes later after I had given up.  I also had a heck of a time cancelling contracts. 

at one time I had 3 seperate contracts with Omnicorp (because of the lag in setting up the contract in the first place) and I just could not cancel the darn things.  There was even a time when I logged out of the game entirely and went to the web site, I saw that I had a contract for heavy industry that I never even knew about during the game!  when did that happen?  according to the history it happend 30 minuets before I logged out!

If trading is supposed the main point of PO then they need to fix it ASAP.  I don't know if it is bugged, lag due to bad servers or some combination of the two, but, they need to fix it quick.  if they can fix the lag issues in trading then I think it will be a great feature and provide a new level of complexity and strategy, but, for now, it is just too painful to deal with.

also, I could not for the life of me figure out how to trade 1 token for another other than cash tokens.  for example I wanted to trade agriculture for office space, but, the only option I found was to trade agriculture for money and then trade money for office space.  perhaps that part is bugged too?

The Graphical User Interface

The UI (which has been mentioned before) has some issues.  the chat window is always on and cannot be closed although it can be shrunk and put in a corner (but it is still there all the time).  many of the statistics windows just don't hang correctly and there are overlapping UI graphics with other windows which makes it difficult to see things.

most windows cannot be moved or resized, otherwise it would not be such a problem.  also, I think that my resoultion was also causing some of the menu size issues, but, a good UI system should scale with resolution.  along with UI menus and resolution, some of text in the game was very small and difficult to read.  I play on 1280x1024 if MC is listening.

the overlays menu, on the right side of screen, for example, has icons which get bigger when the mouse hovers over them.  at first this is ok, since I can still see and select the other, closer, icons which it partially covers.  however, after about a second of hovering the bigger icon shifts downward about 30% and I can no longer select the next icon.  simple fix I am sure, but annoying none-the-less.

Also, there is an icon in the lower left corner with a wrench on it called Menu.  this button does nothing.  perhaps it is just disabled for the demo.

The Avatar

the avatar graphics are blocky and the movement is jerky (and I am compensating for my computers age).  also, you can't walk around as an avatar, you basically point and click your mouse on the map and the avatar just teleports there.  the emoticon actions UI on the left side of the screen will NOT dissapear when you exit avatar mode and since it can't be closed it covers up the residential and industrial build buttons.  the only way to make the avatar emotion menu go away is to log out of your city and go back to planet mode.  again, a small bug, but, very annoying.  also, I never could figure out how to visit the prebuilt city they advertise.  I will try again later tonight.

Information

One of the features of Cities XL game play is that many things are locked  at the start of a new city.  infact you can't build anything until you make your first connection at the edge of the map.  you can build roads, but, that is all.  then you unlock the city hall, but nothing else, and then you unlock the omni-token building which gives power, water, trash and fuel. 

I don't have a problem with this really since that is all explained in the tutorials.  what I have a problem with is the requirements for unlocking the other buildings.  they are way too vague.  some buildings that were locked said I needed the full version so I am ok with that.  other buildings that were locked said I needed some level of population so that is ok too (perhaps they could use some balancing with the numbers).  but some buildings said they needed more small buildings...?  huh?  what does that mean?  some buildings did not even list what the unlocking conditions were so I had no idea what I was supposed to do.  some buildings would unlock and the relock after I placed them and that was confusing as well since I did not know what I did to unlock them in the first place.

also, there are many points in the game where you click on a building and instead of giving you numbers it just says things like 'few', 'some', 'many'.  this tells me nothing and makes it very difficult to make plans or to know what is going on in my city.  I have no idea what the individual populations are of each building, only a general overview of total population in the statistics window.  more detailed information would make the game more strategic and more involving.

Closing

I think I have said enough here.  if the trading and UI elements can be fixed then I think the other stuff is pretty minor.  I also had issues with the zoning/ploppling and saw a few graphical glitches.  the zoning issues are probably just me getting used to a new game and the graphical glitches have been discussed in other topics and are easily fixed with a few patches.

overall, I would say that this game has a lot of potential.  right now it does not compete with SC4, but, over time it could develop into a great city building game.

please continue to discuss your own experiences with the demo and I will continue to add more observations as I continue to play throughout the week.

[princeblowfly 0]

Just going a "little" out of topic, do you guys know where can i get a copy of SC4 Deluxe??I lost my CD and I think I will need it the next 2-3 years!!!

[soldyne 111]

dude, that is way off topic. this is a thread about the demo for a completely different game and, this entire section of the forum is for Cities XL, not SC4. please go to the SC4 general discussion forum to ask your question.

\/ and please dont encourage him...

[parrotti 11]

i have a copy lol

[soldyne 111]

however, I guess I can use this opportunity to discuss some other observations I had about the demo which were not really good or bad.

Zoning

I did not like the idea that ALL buildings/lots are the exact same size and shape; square.  there are no rectangular lots, or lots of different sizes.  this leads to some lots that take up more space then they should (single family housing) and makes some buildings smaller than they should (large office buildings). 

however, after playing with their free form zoning tool and seeing how they give you the option to zone by blocks, or by 1 zone at a time, it would be much more cumbersome if there were different zone sizes.

comparing to SC4, we did not know the zone size ahead of time and just painted an area with a zone type.  then different buildings could move in as they found room to fit whether they were 1x1 or 3x3 or 5x4 or what ever.

unfortunately at this point I feel the '1 zone fits all' concept is going to be a limiting factor in Cities XL longevity, but, once custom content is enabled a good artist knows how to work with any limitation.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I hope that they will allow Residential, Shop, and Industry/Job plopables with variable sizes. I want the multi-size zones they promised in the beginning (SIMfony said they were in the alpha somewhere in the early part of this year). If it is easy enough, I will make my own custom building with custom footprints.

[SimBorg 1]

I ran into the graphical problems also at 1680 x 1050. The fonts and boxes are so small that you can not read them very well. It appears that MC forgot to scale up the UI as the screen resolution goes up.

Also I think that there is some problems with the graphics when running in SLI configuration, the frame rate is taking a hit. I switched out of SLI and the frame rate improved. The Demo is the only game I have that ran into where I had to switch out of SLI.

SC4 plays nicely in SLI , as well as many other 2D and 3D games I have and the MMO's play nicely also. Such as WOW, EVE and the up and coming AION (beta).

Not sure what the solution is. More dev time and testing might be one answer.

[soldyne 111]

interesting find, I don't have SLI but I do have an 8800GTX which is still pretty good even compared to more recent cards (768 MB and 128 core processors). my bottle neck is a single core processor running at 2.7 GHz and 2GB of DDR memory!

anyway, another thing I noticed is the lack of options settings. there is no audio or graphics settings. those could have been taken away due to the demo, but, I don't see why they would do that.

I would also like to continue my review:

TOKENs

like I said earlier, the token system is worth getting used to.  smaller and early buildings only use and produce 1 type of token making balance easy, but, I noticed that as you get further on in development the buildings start to use and produce multiple types of tokens which will make balancing more difficult in a larger, more established city.  the kind of complexity I enjoy in my games.

one balance issue I saw was that agriculture only seems to be used by retail shops (like grocery stores, restaurants, etc), but, it only took 5 retail shops of low density to satisfy my population of 20,000 people.  any more retail shops and they were going bankrupt due to oversaturation of the market.  I had about 20 farms going and they were going bankrupt due to not being able to sell enough food.  I had about 3 excess tokens for agriculture but the trade system is too laggy at the moment and i could not sell my agriculture.  also, I noticed that pretty much everyone else was also selling agriculture because of course they only needed 5 shops to satisfy their populations.

the balance issue is that it seems like the retail shops are too effective.  we should be able to build more shops in order to satisfy the same population which would require more farms to support allowing us to build a nice farm area without everything going bankrupt.  not only that, it would increase the global demad for food and give people a reason to buy it instead of everyone selling it.  also, needing more shops gives us a reason to build nice malls and shopping centers (for all those CJer's out there).  right now 5 stores is kind of tiny.

another issue I have with the token system is that there is no way to know how many tokens your city is producing or using.  in the trade screen you can see how many you have extra of or are in need of, but, there is nothing to tell you how much is being made over all.  this makes things in the city rather mysterious.  if I want to produce extra water tokens then how many water towers do I need to support my own city and make a surplus at the same time.

the lack of numbers makes it difficult to plan out the city as well.  If I have a contract to sell 2 water tokens and I have 1 left then how many more farms can I build before my water contract is in trouble?  I am sure the community could figure it out through trial and error, but, I think a game like this should list the raw numbers somewhere, possibly as part of the individual building stats.  click on a farm and it says it uses .25 water tokens and produces .3 farm tokens for example.

[Attila464 2]

Disappointing i doubt that too many changes can, or will be made before release..

[SimBorg 1]

I am sure you are correct on any changes if any. MC is already on the edge.

0 to 12 months is a good time frame for dev for a descent game, 13 to 15 months you are going to start to get nervous and the people with the money are going to get ants in their pants and start walking the halls. Once you reach 18 months or longer you are going to start to lose money and then the resources are really going to get tight.

That might be one reason MC bumped the release date up, pressure from the ones walking the hallways and checking the bank accounts.

Now remember different companies all have different needs. What may work for one may not for the other. Also another thing that helps is just how deep are the bank accounts. So timing will always be different.

MMO's take a longer time to dev but still have a time frame and dead lines to meet and it all boils down to money and resources.

So lets just wait and see what happens and see how MC handles this.

[Mikeaut1 261]

Thanks Soldyne for taking the time to test out and review the demo!

Cities XL looks like a good game, however it shouldn't and can't be compared to Sim City 4. You are dealing with two different games. I'm glad you mentioned that in your post.

I think Cities XL has potential as well. I'm not too sure whether I'm going to purchase a copy because of the price (see this thread for more info), and also because SC4 has been the #1 city building game since 2003 and it continues to expand with custom content thanks to ST and SC4D. 

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Originally posted by: Mikeaut1

I'm not too sure whether I'm going to purchase a copy because of the price (see this thread for more info), and also because SC4 has been the #1 city building game since 2003 and it continues to expand with custom content thanks to ST and SC4D. quote>

And don't forget about Pegrod Productions.

[Ephemeron 17]

Originally posted by: Attila464

Disappointing i doubt that too many changes can, or will be made before release..quote>

Even if not beofre release, it seems like an easy task to balance the trading system. Don't forget that RPGs like RuneScape are being given updates all the time - these have included back-end changes the the game engine, and a massive overhaul of the graphics. So I'm sure they could do a lot for CXL (adding mass transit, more lot sizes, a better UI, terraforming tools). It's all possible in theory!

However RuneScape is one of the most widely played MMOs in the world. I'm not saying that CXL will have to be as popular as RuneScape, but the idea is painfully clear: Cities XL will only get better if it becomes popular. I'm not saying that MC's aprroach (creating a game, then updating it later) is the best idea in the world, but it's what they have chosen. Thus we ought to have confidence in the game, because I suppose CXL is like the stock market - if there is no confidence, people won't buy, and the value will go down. Hence I am forced to conclude that if we want a good city-builder, we should give MC a break, and give CXL a chance.

[cirugo 1,889]

I've played it a bit as well.

Basically it's City Life online with better graphics and a chat window.

If you liked City Life you'll love it.  If you didn't well, then...

[soldyne 111]

well, I just got done with my second attempt at cities XL. and once again the trade screen was so laggy and unresponsive. nothing made sense. I had 5 luxury hotels and no holiday tokens. I had 4 power plants and 3 wind mills with no power tokens. I saved and exited and my online account at the official site showed 1 power token and a contract that was lost that I was never informed of. in game I was making +11,000 C every month, according to the online trade I was lacking fuel and only had +110 a month.

it is so confusing...

if MC can get the in game trade to work then I think they will have a solid start to a good game. without trade, your city stalls too early, so, it is needed.

[Omniassiah 3]

One problem that I have with tokens is how arbitrary they are and how quickly they can crash all your trades. Say 5000 bushels is a token. If you have 4999 bushels of corn surplus you won't have a token, add 1 more you will. How this adversely effects the trading system is that if you have enough surplus of something to trade away for cash or another good, then you build a building that drops you below that magical value then your trades become suspended. Now your short either cash or another token which can cause more trades to suspend. Besides that little problem with the system I'm about as clueless and confused as you on how MC is keeping track of the tokens/trades.

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: soldyneZoning

I did not like the idea that ALL buildings/lots are the exact same size and shape; square.  there are no rectangular lots, or lots of different sizes.  this leads to some lots that take up more space then they should (single family housing) and makes some buildings smaller than they should (large office buildings). 

...

unfortunately at this point I feel the '1 zone fits all' concept is going to be a limiting factor in Cities XL longevity, but, once custom content is enabled a good artist knows how to work with any limitation.quote>

I agree.  I played the demo last night, and I really like the different zoning tools and the road building is fantastic, but I was left very dissapointed that every single zone was the same size.  Zones also don't play well with curved roads.  I was there was more of a "Fill" mode with zones.  For example, still being able to have the same amount of houses in a given area, but fill the gaps and make the space between them more natural.

I did notice some graphic glitches as well, but they aren't too bad.

The game is alright at this point, but not very polished.  I noticed typos in both the interface and tutorials.  This is stuff that people should be catching during play testing.

The most annoying part of the game thus far is the freaking chat window.  There is no way to turn it off.  The best you can do is just move it off to the side, but as soon as you go to planet mode it's right back in your face.

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: SimBorgI ran into the graphical problems also at 1680 x 1050. The fonts and boxes are so small that you can not read them very well. It appears that MC forgot to scale up the UI as the screen resolution goes up.quote>

I play at my monitors maximum, which is 1280x1024 and I also noticed the same issues, some text was sized good, but a lot of the most important UI parts (zoning, roads, buildings, etc...) were too small for me to read, and I have good eyesight!

[Tommo 0]

I noticed also that the game is really slow after some play, for a very stupid reason:

if you zoom street level, the game loads detailed meshes for the buildings. When you zoom out, it will keep the detailed model instead to put the simpler ones it was using for that same level!

So after you zoom in many different places of a city, the game becomes quickly crawling... and you have to reset to planet mode.

Instead if you don't zoom _ever_ it remains fast and fluid even at high resolutions.

[mrfisse 0]

Originally posted by: SimBorg

I am sure you are correct on any changes if any. MC is already on the edge.

0 to 12 months is a good time frame for dev for a descent game, 13 to 15 months you are going to start to get nervous and the people with the money are going to get ants in their pants and start walking the halls. Once you reach 18 months or longer you are going to start to lose money and then the resources are really going to get tight.

That might be one reason MC bumped the release date up, pressure from the ones walking the hallways and checking the bank accounts.

Now remember different companies all have different needs. What may work for one may not for the other. Also another thing that helps is just how deep are the bank accounts. So timing will always be different.

MMO's take a longer time to dev but still have a time frame and dead lines to meet and it all boils down to money and resources.

So lets just wait and see what happens and see how MC handles this.

quote>

Are you kidding me? 12 months for a decent game? Any game i played that i find worth the time or special at all has had more then 3-4 years in development time. Nothing unusual at all. Dont mix up when they actually start working on the game and when they announce it to the public.

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: mrfisse

Originally posted by: SimBorg

I am sure you are correct on any changes if any. MC is already on the edge.

0 to 12 months is a good time frame for dev for a descent game, 13 to 15 months you are going to start to get nervous and the people with the money are going to get ants in their pants and start walking the halls. Once you reach 18 months or longer you are going to start to lose money and then the resources are really going to get tight.

That might be one reason MC bumped the release date up, pressure from the ones walking the hallways and checking the bank accounts.

Now remember different companies all have different needs. What may work for one may not for the other. Also another thing that helps is just how deep are the bank accounts. So timing will always be different.

MMO's take a longer time to dev but still have a time frame and dead lines to meet and it all boils down to money and resources.

So lets just wait and see what happens and see how MC handles this.

quote>

Are you kidding me? 12 months for a decent game? Any game i played that i find worth the time or special at all has had more then 3-4 years in development time. Nothing unusual at all. Dont mix up when they actually start working on the game and when they announce it to the public.

quote>

I agree with mrfisse.  The games I love took years to develop.

[soldyne 111]

I think the token situation could be improved if they just replaced all the words with numbers. how many qualified workers is 'few'? how much power am I producing with the small power plant and how much power is the manufacturing plant draining? also, I think they have a lot of lag issues during the game. perhaps they were not prepared for the number of people playing the demo.

another point I would like to bring up is that I was chatting in game last night and, unless there is a lot of sarcasm going on, the people actually playing the game seemed to like it overall, except of course for the slow trading system. I know there is a lot of negative discussion on this forum but, I guess there are a lot people out there that feel differently. of course, I too have contributed some negative discussion although I do plan to purchase game at release...sorry I am just rambling now...

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I heard that you need a 3 token excess to trade 1 token.

EDIT: I have a large (1680x1050px) monitor and I went into options before playing the game and I set the resolution to high and the UI size to 75%. I bet you did not know that I could do that in the demo!

[MandelSoft 2,775]

One question: does Cities XL has something similair as the graph views of SC4. These graph were always helpful, especially when it came to power demand/capacity, water demand/capacity and RCI demand.

[Tommo 0]

Nah, they aren't there. It's the worst problem to me, as i don't think they could be added with some expansion.

[Lukfi 3]

As was already mentioned, the interface can be scaled.

I'll add a few of my own opinions about CXL. The unified lot size is really an unfortunate decision. How can a poor worker's house have the same footprint as an office skyscraper?

Second, the roads. And the grid that's not really a grid. With the 8-way street lock it's impossible to connect a road to an existing T-section. For this purpose it would be better to have a grid. Caesar IV is a good example of a 3D city builder with a grid that's helpful and not limiting, allowing differently sized lots, and an intelligent way to build roads.

I don't know how many things will change in the full game, however right now after playing the demo, I am somewhat disappointed :-(

[efgrib 45]

Originally posted by: Tommo

Nah, they aren't there. It's the worst problem to me, as i don't think they could be added with some expansion.quote>

you are a liar. such graphs are there!

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: LukfiI'll add a few of my own opinions about CXL. The unified lot size is really an unfortunate decision. How can a poor worker's house have the same footprint as an office skyscraper?

Second, the roads. And the grid that's not really a grid. With the 8-way street lock it's impossible to connect a road to an existing T-section. For this purpose it would be better to have a grid. Caesar IV is a good example of a 3D city builder with a grid that's helpful and not limiting, allowing differently sized lots, and an intelligent way to build roads.

I don't know how many things will change in the full game, however right now after playing the demo, I am somewhat disappointed :-(quote>

I totally agree about the lot sizes.  I have office buildings and houses that both have the same footprint, makes no sense.

I do like the roads right now.  They allow for much more realistic residential neighborhoods.  I hate "wasting space" by not being able to zone with 100% efficiency, but that is more realistic anyway.  I just wish they could make the residential zone squares go away so their property would blend with the unzoned land to make it look more natural.

The zoning tools are nice, but I've found that the terrian is very mysterious.  You can't judge the hieght diferences well unless you're in the street level view.  And as for trading resources, I'm not sold on it nor does it seem fun at this point.  That is perhaps why they are attaching game features to the subscription, because the real on-line features (trading, chatbox, illusion that your city is connected to another) at this point don't seem to be worth $6+ USD a month.

[jabezscratch 159]

Originally posted by: SimBorg

"I ran into the graphical problems also at 1680 x 1050. The fonts and boxes are so small that you can not read them very well. It appears that MC forgot to scale up the UI as the screen resolution goes up.

Also I think that there is some problems with the graphics when running in SLI configuration, the frame rate is taking a hit. I switched out of SLI and the frame rate improved. The Demo is the only game I have that ran into where I had to switch out of SLI."

I have a w-s 1680x1050 native resolution monitor and had no problems w/ the demo.  The UI can be scaled in-game.  In my demo it defaulted to 56% (I believe) but I actually made it smaller to get more viewing area of the city.

I have an ATI 4870x2 (built-in dual GPU, i.e., one card/two GPUs) and had absolutely no graphical problems.  I pushed the demo a bit by zigzagging around and up/down and it didn't hiccup.

I'm sure that ATI and NVIDIA will adapt their drivers over time to help flush out some issues w/ CXL.  The game will be popular enough to warrant attention by the bug video card developers.