Quotes From the Official cities XL Site

[sparky66 0]

I was just looking at some of the quotes on the official cities xl site from gaming websites and magazines etc. and here are a few that made me laugh:

PC Gamer: "Cities XL has something that so many other MMOs lack: true purpose."

You mean pointless trading with other players, a pointless chat box and being able to aimlessly walk around other peoples cities. Is that 'true purpose'?

ign.com: "It looks like everything you would want in a city building game."

Except mass transport, regions, mass terraforming, irregular lot sizes etc.

Colony of Gamer: “The planned co-op experience looks spectacular. The amount of work that has gone in to making it a real community experience is great to see.”

Don't make me laugh.

Gamespot: “If you haven't played a good city-building game in a while, you may want to keep an eye out for Cities XL”

Well I have played SC4.

Eurogamer.net: “Crucially, Cities XL is already capable of providing that handful of magical moments that only strategy sims can, those looking for something different in an MMO – a bonsai garden to maintain rather than a rugged wilderness to conquer - may find Monte Cristo's polished oddity exerting a gentle fascination…”

Since when do you maintain a bonsai garden?

PC Format: “What's really impressive is that your cities are incredibly easy to build exactly how you want them.”

Not really (OK easier than SC4 maybe but still not that easy).

Simphoni:“It’s not a city builder it’s much more”

Whats that supposed to mean?

Play.tm: “Cities XL looks to be the answer to fans' prayers, offering the most complete city building experience possibly ever conceived.”

Well it would be complete if they didn't remove features for the PO.

Gamer Limit: “Nothing groundbreaking is shown, but it is certainly looking like it’s on track to be a good game.”

What! But it has curvy roads! (sarcasm).

Total PC Gaming: “Cities XL offers an impressive range of depth and scope, and its online functionality seems considered and well planned rather than a tacked on novelty.”

I would say that the 'online functionality' is more of a tacked on money maker.

Gamezone: “CITIES XL has high ambitions, aiming to bring in players of other game types, while pleasing fans of the core genre.”

Are we all pleased?

Game Vortex: “Keep an eye out for this game to become available to everyone. You're going to want to try it out!”

Whilst i do want to try it out i don't want to try the PO.

Kokatu: “Think of Cities XL as a sort of spiritual successor to Sim City Societies, but with less emphasis on the people-please and more emphasis on playing God.”

Oh dear.

So, what do you think of these comments?

[remixedcat 2]

Honestly! How much did MC pay these people?! I am pretty sure that MC is very desperate for attention and sales of this game. They should put thier money where thier mouth is. or rather, thier game!

The amount of money spent on paying these gaming rags to say this could have been used to hire more people to better develop the game. I am sure the game is not that "glowing godsend CB game" That everyone has hyped it up to be.

This is why games are being hyped up and then dropped after retail.

The hype machine has got to stop. People are buying into hype and nothing more these days. I am seeing too many games rushed and hyped and not live up to thier expectations.

I am infuriated about those comments, actually. As a hardcore gamer who has great tastes and is a connesuier of games I can tell you that CXL will NOT live up to SC4 in any way, shape, or form. 

Edited excessive use of caps

[Stevester101 0]

The mag comments are generally pretty open - looking forward to what is potentially going to be a great game, though some of them do seem a bit over the top.

The key word is 'potential' and thats what this game could have that the other similar games don't (to the same degree). It's going to have constant and active online development by the developers and it should evolve over time into the game that the player base want. With the right backing and support it will fill all the gaps and realistic wish lists if it gets the community support needed to keep it viable.

Out of the starting blocks it darn impressive graphically and has most of the features we're looking for, including some we've not seen in the SC series. It's only going to build on this.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

The Moderator is standing by...   and he is not laughing either.

 

[sparky66 0]

you have to admit that some of these comments seem a little 'fabricated'. I have bought the game (the limited edition) as i thought it was a good game (from the demo). I won't, however, be getting the PO. I think that this is a good game. It's just that, without the fact that the PO takes prioritory over single player, it could've been a great game. I think that if they had just given single player mass transit it would make a lot of people happy and make alot more sales for MC. i don't mind that the PO gets 'medieval england' building packs and stuff like that, it's just that mass transit is an important part of any city, and therefore, any city building game.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Oh ok then... you made me...  

I will laugh...  just this once.

Hee hee.

 

[Asheroo 53]

Let me make a point here no one will probably get from this community:

We are the hardcore city builders, not the normal game reviewer.

In other words, since we are the hardcore city builders, we have extremely high expectations that probably no developer will ever meet for another thousand millenniums if the Earth will still exist then. The reviewers, however, have normal average expectations and just want a normal good city building game, as they are the general gamer. And, previewers and reviewers go through many genres, though some sites may assign people to specific genres. It's not like they play SC4 everyday and mod it like crazy. They just want a normal good game.

The only thing I regret in those quotes above is where it ever says about the community being happy with it or with the game filling the community's expectations or whatever. The rest is to the previewer's opinion of a general, normal gamer. I think CXL is a great city builder game for the average gamer.

[DazzaDazza 29]

wow that's a long time, thousand millennium, considering it has only taken MC 2 years to make CXL, and 20 years to make 4 SimCity's, I think your time line is a bit out there, really the only differences in what I wont in a city builder and what CXL has to offer is I wont SC4 style zoning and that is it, I don't think that is too high expect.

Anyway back to topic

 

PC Gamer: "Cities XL has something that so many other MMOs lack: true purpose."

well I would think most games have a purpose to it

 

ign.com: "It looks like everything you would want in a city building game."

I wont a full 3D SimCity,

 

Gamespot: “If you haven't played a good city-building game in a while, you may want to keep an eye out for Cities XL”

Yes I haven’t  acutely,  I played city life,  

 

 

PC Format: “What's really impressive is that your cities are incredibly easy to build exactly how you want them.”

Well I don’t think they are, I find cities in SC4 far more essay to build, the game doses most of the work for you.  

 

Simphoni:“It’s not a city builder it’s much more”

Yes we know is a MMO, so you have told us

 

Play.tm: “Cities XL looks to be the answer to fans' prayers, offering the most complete city building experience possibly ever conceived.”

Yes but only if you play online, other then that you get half.

 

 

Gamer Limit: “Nothing groundbreaking is shown, but it is certainly looking like its on track to be a good game

 This has to be the most real statement hear, they are right it is defiantly nothing groundbreaking, and maybe it well end up o.k.

 

Total PC Gaming: “Cities XL offers an impressive range of depth and scope, and its online functionality seems considered and well planned rather than a tacked on novelty.”

I say the game is over complicated where it doses not need to be.

 

Gamezone: “CITIES XL has high ambitions, aiming to bring in players of other game types, while pleasing fans of the core genre.”   

I wonder what other “game types” would play this game.

 

Game Vortex: “Keep an eye out for this game to become available to everyone. You're going to want to try it out!”

Well this is a silly comment, of cores the game is available to everyone, it is available to everyone who wants to buy it .

 

Kokatu: “Think of Cities XL as a sort of spiritual successor to Sim City Societies, but with less emphasis on the people-please and more emphasis on playing God.”

  I say there is a lot of emphasis on people trading in this game, oh and people as well.         

  

[SimDragon 3]

I love your graphic abcvs.

Most of these comments are hype to generate excitement for the game. You see this with all games. MC feeds these sites and mags info to generate the hype for the release, its called marketing. What will be interesting is to watch if the comments change after the game is released. My guess is most of these sites won't even comment on the game after release.

Why do I keep seeing that our expectations are to high? Simcity came out in 1989. I started playing in 1990. I have been playing many different types of CB games over that 19 years and I expect games to get better. Currently the latest CB games bore me, I lose interest rather quickly. Does this mean that my expectations are to high? I don't agree. High expectations drive companies to make things better, if high expectations are not voiced then things might not get better. It's called supply and demand. Right now I demand a better game than what MC looks like it is going to deliver so I will not spend my hard earned money on what MC is supplying. If enough people feel this way then MC has to change its gaming model to meet demand or risk failure. If not then they have a successful game and I am in the minority. I am fine with being in the minority as long as I realize it. This way I will not consider playing CB games anymore. I am not a philanthropist, investor or venture capitalist so I will not fund a company to experiment on my entertainment especially if I don't think it has any chance of meeting my expectations. I played the beta and have a pretty good feeling of them game and feel it will not meet my expectations in its current state.

The only voice we really have these days is how we spend our money. So please stop telling me my expectations are to high and that nobody can meet them. That implies I am better than others, gaming developers aren't smart enough to design a game I want or I am too old to play these games anymore and should move on to other forms of entertainment. Instead I will save my money for the next game that I feel will give me my money's worth.

[City Planner 121]

Originally posted by: sparky66

So, what do you think of these comments?

quote>

I think many of these sites I've never even heard of, and the ones that I do know of seems to me like they are using more of what MC uses, marketing speak, maybe in hopes of gaining some advertising revenue.

After all, if you were MC, would you pump your ad dollars into a site that said, the game is complete garbage or would you put your money into the sites that say it's looking great/is great/ is everything a city building fan could possibly want.  If it were me, the praisers would get my money, and the others would have to do without.

Somebody said that we are the hardcore city builders and the reviewers are not.  I'm only bummed that if the non hardcore reviewer actually likes this, and the developers and publishers are catering to them (because obviously they're not catering to us), then we'll never really see expansion in this genre if they truly think that CXL is the, be all, do all city building game, it's unfortunately far from it.  It needs a tremendous amount of work before it can even be a true city building game in my opinion.

The Internet and popular sites are a great way to let people hear your voice and for publishers to change things that are wrong.  Look at what people managed to do with Spore and then The Sims 3 with it's DRM simply by flooding popular sites such as amazon.com with messages about whatever might disgruntle the gamer.  Keeping word locked up at simtropolis even though ti's got like 350,000 users is rather pointless if you are trying to sway the developers/publishers, all those quotes need to have the users rebuke them on the same page and if they don't offer such things then shame on them.   Letting people know about the game on popular "sales" sites (sites that will be selling the game) is basically voting with many peoples wallets since bad press by other gamers will often deter a sale.

Anyway, Im not here to start some uprising, it seems people are quite capable of that themselves, I'm just perhaps stating or overstating the obvious.

[remixedcat 2]

1622913 Oct-05-2009 07:02 AM:

We have enough 'average" games that are lackluster and give you a couple days satisfaction at best.

What we REALLY need are great games that keep you immersed and happy for MONTHS!

That's why procedural gaming is going to to big.

For example a game I am beta testing for is procedrually generated content down to the weapons and it's an upcoming MMO. You would have endless content to come back to.

People are putting great content on the backburner while trying to be as 'realistic' as possible, which makes it not a game for me.

if a game's graphics are too realistic for me, it stops being a game.

However these devs put so much empahsis on the graphics that they forget to put content. Crysis was a pretty, but boring game. Felt like too much was missing.

Too many Crysis wannabees coming out but not enough Oblivions, Morrowinds, Diablo 1,Starcraft,etc.

[Androv 6]

 PC Gamer: "Cities XL has something that so many other MMOs lack: true purpose."

I think it's referring to the fact that you can make an entire city, rather than grinding away to get the magic purple helmet of slightly better stats than your current magic purple helmet.

 

ign.com: "It looks like everything you would want in a city building game."

It's not what everyone wants, but I think that's impossible.

 

Gamespot: “If you haven't played a good city-building game in a while, you may want to keep an eye out for Cities XL”

Well I haven't played city builders in a while, so I'm keen to try this one out.  

 

 

PC Format: “What's really impressive is that your cities are incredibly easy to build exactly how you want them.”

It depends on what you mean by 'easy'.  In this one you can zone an area, and it will fill in the roads and lots for you in a functional way.  In SC4 if you used the 'autozone' option you tended to end up with streets that didn't connect and so on.  You can also determine what kind of industry / offices / houses develop in a particular area, something that SC4 didn't do at all.

 

Simphoni:“It’s not a city builder it’s much more”

It's an online MMO city builder game - the first of its kind - with far more interactivity than SC4 or other city builders.

 

Play.tm: “Cities XL looks to be the answer to fans' prayers, offering the most complete city building experience possibly ever conceived.”

Well, the hardcore city building fans aren't very happy, but the general fans of city building games are probably going to really enjoy this.

 

 

Gamer Limit: “Nothing groundbreaking is shown, but it is certainly looking like its on track to be a good game

Curved roads?  That's pretty groundbreaking to me.

 

Total PC Gaming: “Cities XL offers an impressive range of depth and scope, and its online functionality seems considered and well planned rather than a tacked on novelty.”

They had been talking about trading with other cities from the start, and it seems integrated within the game.  There are different ways to grow your city, from agricultural centre to urban office metropolis.

 

Gamezone: “CITIES XL has high ambitions, aiming to bring in players of other game types, while pleasing fans of the core genre.”   

I think non-hardcore players may enjoy this game, but we'll have to see.

 

Game Vortex: “Keep an eye out for this game to become available to everyone. You're going to want to try it out!”

Ok this is a bit weird.

 

Kokatu: “Think of Cities XL as a sort of spiritual successor to Sim City Societies, but with less emphasis on the people-please and more emphasis on playing God.”

I don't agree with this, it definitely has more variety than SCS (but probably less humour).  

It's out in 2 days!!!!

[City Planner 121]

ign.com: "It looks like everything you would want in a city building game."

It's not what everyone wants, but I think that's impossible.quote>

I agree, it is impossible to get what everybody would want in the next gen city builder, but they seem to have only gone half way anyway.

Curved Roads : Curvey roads being one of my pet peeves. I spend time making a really smooth curvey beautiful road, then decide that I should place some buildings along side of it and they just simply look out of place as square buildings that do not conform to the road system. Or how about wanting to upgrade that nice curvey road with a larger or one way road. Can't simply upgrade it (for one reason or another), so I have to remove it and try to replace what was there with a new road only the new road won't conform to the old road. It's this type of stuff that is only a half hearted attempt and something that I don't honestly ever expect to see change just like someone posted in a message that I read recently that the buildings are all one footprint size because of performance issues. I could only hope (for MC's sake) that the game produces enough money for them to keep it alive long enough that computers are capable of having many different sized buildings in them. This is one of the big game breakers to me to see every building both one family home and apartment building holding tens or hundreds (however many) have the same footprint size. It removes any immersion that I had while playing after a very short time.

Game Vortex's quote is just plain bizarre. It's such a small genre, and not one that interests many outside of the genre. My better half still calls these games "your little people games" for all my city builders and which there is no interest in her playing any of them, the genre bores her to almost tears. So, even while she has watched me play CXL both beta and demo, she has no interest in playing it. Actually, I think she's a bit happy that I'll not be buying it as that's just 40.00 more that she can spend this month LOL.

[JollyBobber 0]

The real questions is, when were theses comments made? if they were made in the very early stages of development, I can see why the sites said this, to stir up interest early. If not, I don't know what to say.

[DazzaDazza 29]

Originally posted by: SimDragon

I love your graphic abcvs.

Most of these comments are hype to generate excitement for the game. You see this with all games. MC feeds these sites and mags info to generate the hype for the release, its called marketing. What will be interesting is to watch if the comments change after the game is released. My guess is most of these sites won't even comment on the game after release.

Why do I keep seeing that our expectations are to high? Simcity came out in 1989. I started playing in 1990. I have been playing many different types of CB games over that 19 years and I expect games to get better. Currently the latest CB games bore me, I lose interest rather quickly. Does this mean that my expectations are to high? I don't agree. High expectations drive companies to make things better, if high expectations are not voiced then things might not get better. It's called supply and demand. Right now I demand a better game than what MC looks like it is going to deliver so I will not spend my hard earned money on what MC is supplying. If enough people feel this way then MC has to change its gaming model to meet demand or risk failure. If not then they have a successful game and I am in the minority. I am fine with being in the minority as long as I realize it. This way I will not consider playing CB games anymore. I am not a philanthropist, investor or venture capitalist so I will not fund a company to experiment on my entertainment especially if I don't think it has any chance of meeting my expectations. I played the beta and have a pretty good feeling of them game and feel it will not meet my expectations in its current state.

The only voice we really have these days is how we spend our money. So please stop telling me my expectations are to high and that nobody can meet them. That implies I am better than others, gaming developers aren't smart enough to design a game I want or I am too old to play these games anymore and should move on to other forms of entertainment. Instead I will save my money for the next game that I feel will give me my money's worth.quote>

110% agree with every think you said,  more emotional blackmail from CXL fans,   if wonting a better game that was made 6 years ago means I have high expectations,  then yes I have high expectations,  

Just like when I buy a new car I expect that it is better then the previous model,  

[edcase2k4-thugangel1983 1]

great post SimDragon! right with you there...

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

[cirugo 1,889]

to be fair, a lot of these quotes are coming from even the pre-Beta phase of the development cycle.

I'm sure that a lot of us who were looking forward to the game wouldn't have had an issue with statements like these even six months ago.

[remixedcat 2]

am I the only one who thinks the curvy roads was just one big gimmick?

With square lots 

edited language

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Using the car analogy: do you expect to find a 2000 Toyota that is better than a 1930 Rolls Royce?

[JollyBobber 0]

Originally posted by: remixedcat

am I the only one who thinks the curvy roads was just one big gimmick?

With square lotsquote>

Yea, but they are true, right?

Edited quoted language

[DazzaDazza 29]

Well yes I do, Toyota make very good cars, and the only thing that make a 1930 Rolls Royce any good is because it has been rebuilt and modernized to fit with current strandeds, unless it is in a museum. Then you can only look at it

[Attila464 2]

Originally posted by: abcvs

quote>

I can feel abcvs is holding himself back from saying something

But i agree its just marketting hype, but it could backfire if customers then find out their amazing MMO city builder is not so amazing. Which is the problem with hype in the first place.

[SimDragon 3]

Originally posted by: remixedcat

am I the only one who thinks the curvy roads was just one big gimmick?

With square lots quote>

I admit I thought "wow true curvy roads, how cool is that"? But after playing the beta I agree it is just a gimmick because you can't build on them to save your life. You have so much unused space that you can only fill in with the hideous parks they give you if your lucky. The one size fits all square lots really ruin the game in my opinion, especially for the curved roads.

Edited quoted language

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

I can feel abcvs is holding himself back from saying something quote>

There are many moods of abcvs.  

You CXL forum guys,  have not met my alter ego Sister E. Nema yet have you?

No job to big or too dirty. 

[Shanie 0]

Originally posted by: SimDragon

Originally posted by: remixedcat

am I the only one who thinks the curvy roads was just one big gimmick?

With square lots quote>

I admit I thought "wow true curvy roads, how cool is that"? But after playing the beta I agree it is just a gimmick because you can't build on them to save your life. You have so much unused space that you can only fill in with the hideous parks they give you if your lucky. The one size fits all square lots really ruin the game in my opinion, especially for the curved roads.
quote>

It's like all these developers are in California or something - have they ever been to Boston? Smaller cities in Britain? Most of these cities have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years. Every road is curved and cobbled and buildings are built around them. THAT should be a true option in a city building game.

But square roads are easier to code for.

Edited unecessary comment.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]