Cities XL looks good.

[Oxworth 0]

I dug up my dusty old copy of Sim City 4/Rush Hour, and compared to Cities XL the interface is clunky, and overcomplicated.  Admittedly I never was a HUGE fan of watching sliders and numbers go up and down, but I do like city builders, and games like Civilization, The Settlers, and Stronghold.

Sim City 4 is a great game, it's fun and all, but for my money, I'd rather play Cities XL, I don't have to worry about going bankrupt because some obscure slider on a firestation is set too high, or fires breaking out because I didn't budge the slider up when my city grew, micromanagement sucks.

Maybe I'm the wrong demographic for Sim CIty, but Cities XL has the type of interface I like, without being utterly terrible like Sim City Societies.

I pay $15 a month for World of Warcraft, the Cities XL monthly fee to play online doesn't discourage me, and a world-wide economy that one governor has no control over seems far more interesting than total control.  Planet View > Region view.

Terraforming? If you're building a city, you could, in theory, move mountains, and the like.  But in the real world that would be far too costly most of the time, there are some cases where they've done this, and even cases where they've created new land in the middle of the ocean, it's certainly possible, but it's far more likely that the city would be build around whatever environmental issues comes your way.  Curved roads certainly helps with that.

Full 3D, exquisitely detailed, I don't zoom in and get a pixelated picture of a house, there's an actual house there.

Certainly the public transportation issue is a big one, but it seems that issue will be rectified very shortly after release, so I don't see an issue at all.

It's certainly not the perfect game, but neither is Sim City 4, and for sure Sim City Societies isn't.  Interacting and trading with another player's city, specializing your city and cornering the market on a specific resource.  Sounds more fun than watching charts and graphs move around to me.

You want the next step up from Sim City 4, guess what it's either this or Societies, and for my money, you know which one I'd pick.

Swear word removed.

--Liv

[speed12345 2]

but why do the buildings come out of the ground like plopping? that's probably why simcity society's failed majorly.

[gabry85 2]

Well, about the title... you hit the nail on the head. Cities XL *does* look good: that's what attracted people to the game alright. As for the thread itself... wow, you totally missed the point. I won't repeat myself, but I was particularly struck by your opinion about Region Play and Terraforming.

Tell me, how is CXL better than SC4 in that respect? In CXL you got a Planet with several dots scattered all over the place where you can trade with anybody, even if their city is on the other side of the world, but don't worry, MC provide their planets with the legendary Trade-O-Matic which lets you deal with anybody like you're exchanging pies with your neighbor in a matter of seconds. Fast. Secure. Easy. Online. Such is the power of the Internet...

In SC4, RP lets you build large cities with no limits and terraforming allows you unleash your creativity. MC can give me gigas of perfectly realistic maps of Earth, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Coruscant, Naboo and The Death Star, even for free. Yet, I won't play any of them, because I want to make something mine. Sorry, I wanted to build the city of MY dreams, not the city of parts of someone else's dream.

OK, I admit this is not realistic: Gods and Mayors are like oranges and apples and as such don't share the same job. But, if you want maximum realism, tell me about:

- the huge low-density lots (yeah, even you can afford enourmous mansions, don't miss this one-time opportunity, buy a crumbling 40x40m villa TODAY for just $999.99!!! Even if the real estate industry is going belly-up, but what the heck),

- an All-In-One that automagically gives you all the resources you need for your starting village (for 3-year old and beyond wanna-be mayors and entrepreneurs),

- no mass transit for solo mode (no, not even when it's ready: it's for the PO only. Oh, sorry, you plan to play it, who cares about the other players who don't). OK, this was repeated ad nauseam, but somebody simply don't get it,

- the very accurate budget window with no ordinances and expensive civics and utilities (oops, I forgot, you don't like sliders),

- and

- much

- more... or less...

Yeah, that's how things work in the real world.

And, well, well, well, I'll be:

You want the next step up from Sim City 4, guess what it's either this or Societies, and for my money, you know which one I'd pick.quote>

I thought about this all the time. So, this is indeed true: companies can afford to make half-baked CB games at this rate. After all you don't have much of a choice, do you? It's not like selling RPGs or FPS games.

But, hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I too love curvy roads and 3D (I model stuff in 3ds Max myself). But there's a difference of what looks good and what feels good. If you really like city building games, you'll realize it soon enough.... maybe.

Oh, and please, hurry up when the game comes out. You don't want to find out everybody took the best spots on your Planet!

Swear word removed.  Please talk about the issues, not each other.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[Livin in Sim 83]

[MandelSoft 2,770]

Terraforming is quite an important part when making the city of your dreams. You can make your own non-existing landscapes, or you can try to recreate any landscape in the world (from the flatlands of the Netherlands to the Himalaya, there is no limit). What you get now is that everyone is playing on the same landscape, so there goes one factor of creativity, and your city doesn't really feel like your own.

By the way, for me, functionallity adds more weight to the balance than beauty. And for me it seems that SimCity 4 is like a stereotype professor (not so very hansome, but he has a lot of knowledge), while CitiesXL is like a stereotype dumb blondie girl (beautiful on the outside, but without much depth). I might want to try CitiesXL, but that's a decision I'm going to make after the release after some reviews.

Best,

Maarten

[Attila464 2]

Originally posted by: Oxworth

Full 3D, exquisitely detailed, I don't zoom in and get a pixelated picture of a house, there's an actual house there.

quote>

And thats where you lost me, the graphics of CXL are nothing special, barely better then city life.HK, NDEX, Simgoober, BSC and the multitude of other batters that produce highly accurate and detailed models, i would even say its more detailed then CXL. Zoom in on a CXL house and many times i see textures that don't blend or mesh together properly, bad performance even on a overclocked GTX 260 with 3.2g Quad Core (mind you i know that it doesn't use all 4 cores) Just my 2 cents but 3d graphics aren't all their cracked up to be, back in 2007 these would be groundbreaking, today they're just meh.

[JakeMD 107]

Originally posted by: Attila464

Originally posted by: Oxworth

Full 3D, exquisitely detailed, I don't zoom in and get a pixelated picture of a house, there's an actual house there.

quote>

And thats where you lost me, the graphics of CXL are nothing special, barely better then city life.HK, NDEX, Simgoober, BSC and the multitude of other batters that produce highly accurate and detailed models, i would even say its more detailed then CXL. Zoom in on a CXL house and many times i see textures that don't blend or mesh together properly, bad performance even on a overclocked GTX 260 with 3.2g Quad Core (mind you i know that it doesn't use all 4 cores) Just my 2 cents but 3d graphics aren't all their cracked up to be, back in 2007 these would be groundbreaking, today they're just meh.

quote>

Yeah the grahpics close up are less than Sc4, but the buildings in CXL are basically 90% less polys (Pieces of 3D mesh).  This allows for many, many 3D buildings to be displayed without lag.

[Attila464 2]

Originally posted by: swat-medic

Originally posted by: Attila464

Originally posted by: Oxworth

Full 3D, exquisitely detailed, I don't zoom in and get a pixelated picture of a house, there's an actual house there.

quote>

And thats where you lost me, the graphics of CXL are nothing special, barely better then city life.HK, NDEX, Simgoober, BSC and the multitude of other batters that produce highly accurate and detailed models, i would even say its more detailed then CXL. Zoom in on a CXL house and many times i see textures that don't blend or mesh together properly, bad performance even on a overclocked GTX 260 with 3.2g Quad Core (mind you i know that it doesn't use all 4 cores) Just my 2 cents but 3d graphics aren't all their cracked up to be, back in 2007 these would be groundbreaking, today they're just meh.

quote>

Yeah the grahpics close up are less than Sc4, but the buildings in CXL are basically 90% less polys (Pieces of 3D mesh).  This allows for many, many 3D buildings to be displayed without lag.

quote>

Thats what suprised me, in theory thats what should happen, but i was getting unexplainable amounts of lag. I had no major programs running in the background, i went as far as to check to terminate all no essential programs; still lag. It doesn't happen with sc4, it doesn't happen with any other game. But never mind that, this isn't the trouble shoot my problem thread (which i think will be coming very soon after release)

Overall the 3d feel is nice, but i would have like if they had included settings that would allow those with more powerful systems to run the game to its full potential.

[JakeMD 107]

Originally posted by: Attila464

Originally posted by: swat-medic

Originally posted by: Attila464

Originally posted by: Oxworth

Full 3D, exquisitely detailed, I don't zoom in and get a pixelated picture of a house, there's an actual house there.

quote>

And thats where you lost me, the graphics of CXL are nothing special, barely better then city life.HK, NDEX, Simgoober, BSC and the multitude of other batters that produce highly accurate and detailed models, i would even say its more detailed then CXL. Zoom in on a CXL house and many times i see textures that don't blend or mesh together properly, bad performance even on a overclocked GTX 260 with 3.2g Quad Core (mind you i know that it doesn't use all 4 cores) Just my 2 cents but 3d graphics aren't all their cracked up to be, back in 2007 these would be groundbreaking, today they're just meh.

quote>

Yeah the grahpics close up are less than Sc4, but the buildings in CXL are basically 90% less polys (Pieces of 3D mesh).  This allows for many, many 3D buildings to be displayed without lag.

quote>

Thats what suprised me, in theory thats what should happen, but i was getting unexplainable amounts of lag. I had no major programs running in the background, i went as far as to check to terminate all no essential programs; still lag. It doesn't happen with sc4, it doesn't happen with any other game. But never mind that, this isn't the trouble shoot my problem thread (which i think will be coming very soon after release)

Overall the 3d feel is nice, but i would have like if they had included settings that would allow those with more powerful systems to run the game to its full potential.

quote>

Perhaps we will find a way around it.. Had you been running it on all of your cores?  

[bluespottedhorse 49]

It looks good from a far...but far from good!

[Attila464 2]

Originally posted by: swat-medic

Originally posted by: Attila464

Originally posted by: swat-medic

Originally posted by: Attila464

Originally posted by: Oxworth

Full 3D, exquisitely detailed, I don't zoom in and get a pixelated picture of a house, there's an actual house there.

quote>

And thats where you lost me, the graphics of CXL are nothing special, barely better then city life.HK, NDEX, Simgoober, BSC and the multitude of other batters that produce highly accurate and detailed models, i would even say its more detailed then CXL. Zoom in on a CXL house and many times i see textures that don't blend or mesh together properly, bad performance even on a overclocked GTX 260 with 3.2g Quad Core (mind you i know that it doesn't use all 4 cores) Just my 2 cents but 3d graphics aren't all their cracked up to be, back in 2007 these would be groundbreaking, today they're just meh.

quote>

Yeah the grahpics close up are less than Sc4, but the buildings in CXL are basically 90% less polys (Pieces of 3D mesh).  This allows for many, many 3D buildings to be displayed without lag.

quote>

Thats what suprised me, in theory thats what should happen, but i was getting unexplainable amounts of lag. I had no major programs running in the background, i went as far as to check to terminate all no essential programs; still lag. It doesn't happen with sc4, it doesn't happen with any other game. But never mind that, this isn't the trouble shoot my problem thread (which i think will be coming very soon after release)

Overall the 3d feel is nice, but i would have like if they had included settings that would allow those with more powerful systems to run the game to its full potential.

quote>

Perhaps we will find a way around it.. Had you been running it on all of your cores?  

quote>

Is it possible to run it on all four cores? As far as i know it is not.

[RegisterST2 0]

Originally posted by: Attila464

Is it possible to run it on all four cores? As far as i know it is not.

quote>

The beta was definitely not multicore.  I believe the demo was single core also.

Supposedly they are supposed to add multi core support for release, so I guess we'll find out for sure in the next few days.

[cirugo 1,889]

cool story bro

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]