Comparing Simcity and Cities XL

[gutterclub 2,729]

You mention you can't use aspects like zoning, yet all RTS games use the whole "point and click" to move troops, no different really.

[PyroMancer 0]

Originally posted by: sacasoh

The point is: i think that simulation city building is a niche market that don't sell enought to have titles coming out every year... if you the companies "dumb down" the games certainly they will piss off hardcore gamers, but will attract younger consumers... So, all this time, all companies could have done a "SC5", but instead they invested on FPS and other styles that are aimed to people that have to see a explosion every 20 seconds to continue playing the game. It's called profit and we can't blame them for that, can we? 

quote>

Yea but I think not only in the case of CB games but in many games now a days they confuse Dumbing down with Easy Accessibility. The Simcity games have always been fairly accessibility which is evident by their popularity. I mean you don't sell millions of copies of a game by targeting small niche audiences. By it's very definition that is impossible cause their aren't that many people in the niche.

Games need to follow the moto of some of the original older board games like GO. It takes 5 minutes to learn but a life time to Master. By making the game simple to understand and use so the casual gamers will be drawn in. But also has a lot of depth so that it takes a long time to master and learn to draw in the more dedicated gamers. This increases the longevity of the game like in the case of SimCity series. They are fairly easy to get into and get a small city going. But it takes a lot of work and effort to really get an large excellent city built.

But instead games now adays in their attempts to draw in the Casual gamers take the moto of. It takes 5 minutes to learn and 10 mins to Master. So that things are very shallow as you quickly hit the bottom. And you find they have no depth so you shelf them and move on. Now some companies may think "Oh that's fine we already made our money since they BOUGHT the game." But this is a TERRIBLE mind set and is incorrect. Because bad reviews and word of mouth from people who play it prevent more people from buying it so they make less money.

Also the games that last like SimCity do have a lot of depth to them. So companies continue to make money off them years after their original release. These type of games often end up among the most profitable. Games that end up in the value bin 1 month after release because they have no depth or replayablitiy don't make money.

Because again how many other "niche" games like simcity do you see still on the shelves in many major retailers after several years? The "niche" crowd is the dedicated fans who even now continue to play and mod their game using stuff found on sites like this. But the vast majority of those SimCity sales were from casual gamers who play plain old vanilla SC4.

[rolltide09 0]

Well so far in my opinion Monte Cristo has already lost me. Their approach to launching the game has been a disaster. Read the forums and their facebook page. People can't even get the game running. No matter how good the gameplay is, many people will remember this disaster and automatically give Cities XL a giant black mark when comparing it so SC 4 or any SC game. EA may be considered the evil empire by some, but I've never purchased a game from them that I couldn't at least install and play. The hassle and frustration they've caused with their haphazard game launch is already enough to make me clamor desperately for a SC 5...from the original producers. Come on EA! Give us a SC 5 already!!! We are desperate for the real thing...not some half-baked imitation.

[omnivoreceo 54]

Sounds to me like SimCity 4 is still the king. No one really has enough to say about this to make me want to get it. And I tried SCS because I'm a sucker, I won't do this one too.

[bluespottedhorse 49]

I'd agree with you that SC4 is still King but that could change relatively soon if CITIESXL starts patching up the holes. CITIESXL game mechanics are quite different from SC4. Once they've worked out all the kinks and added content and controls that we're asking for I would buy it...but not before!

[Apache 0]

Originally posted by: rolltide09

Well so far in my opinion Monte Cristo has already lost me. Their approach to launching the game has been a disaster. Read the forums and their facebook page. People can't even get the game running. No matter how good the gameplay is, many people will remember this disaster and automatically give Cities XL a giant black mark when comparing it so SC 4 or any SC game. EA may be considered the evil empire by some, but I've never purchased a game from them that I couldn't at least install and play. The hassle and frustration they've caused with their haphazard game launch is already enough to make me clamor desperately for a SC 5...from the original producers. Come on EA! Give us a SC 5 already!!! We are desperate for the real thing...not some half-baked imitation.quote>

You all ready had your Simcity 5 ....it was called Simcity Societies LOL! You want Simcity Societies 2 now? Cause EA looks at the CB genere as a HUGE pocket lose now after the SC Socieites epic fail!

[plasticsim 9]

If you turn on the time-machine and travel back to when SC4 was released, people complained just as much. It was originally hailed as the "Worst SimCity game ever made!" But after a few major bug fixes, an expansion and some game enhancements, SC4 became what it is now.

EA wanted to turn SCS into the next Sims, but failed miserably. MC appears to be taking a page out of EA's book with CXL but with a slightly different approach (PO). I think they're accepting a huge risk by pushing people to pay for PO to experience a game that should have also been included inside of the box (Um, Hello! Mass Transit!). Sure, make me pay for adding the Ski Resort management GEM, but do not force me to pay for basic game items and features.

So far I have found that I really enjoy playing Cities XL. Some areas seem to be just right, some are missing, and others need a ton of work. However, in the CB genre, this game is a breath of fresh air and I'd like to see where MC takes this title. But I have little patience for companies who would rather dime and nickel me for every little tiny thing to "Add to the game experience."

**By the way, if you look closely at the advertisements in-game, MC is clearly getting a nice cut from companies such as Ford. Sure, sell billboard ads for in-game use. In fact, please do so! I think it adds to the realism. But do not force me to pay for PO to get content updates if you are also getting a big, fat pay cheque from advertisers.

[PyroMancer 0]

Originally posted by: Apache

You all ready had your Simcity 5 ....it was called Simcity Societies LOL! You want Simcity Societies 2 now? Cause EA looks at the CB genere as a HUGE pocket lose now after the SC Societies epic fail!

quote>

Yea I think it's sad but true. I remember when SCS was in the work seeing developer interviews with what I can only describe as this idiot lady. She was showing off far more gameplay mechanics on SCS then what I've been able to find in any of the CXL videos which seem to be all flash and no substance. But anyhow just from the very early concept explanations and then some vids of gameplay it was easy to tell it was horribly simplified SC.

Listening to the developer interview with that lady as she eagerly talking about the "exciting new direction" they were taking the SC series all I could think was OMG your a bunch of idiots. You don't go completely redesigning a very successful franchise so that it doesn't retain even a trace of it's original core. I mean other then the NAME SCS has pretty much NOTHING in common with the originals.

The previous SC games continued a progressively more complex build up to better gfx, more options, more detailed cities/region, and so on. But then they take so many steps back in it's design the series that it plays like a predesor to the ORIGINAL game because of it's simplicity. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if SC1 sold more copies then SCS. Though it's probably not the case as many people had high hopes for SCS so EA was able to at least cash in some on SCS because of the name alone. I know they even made an expansion but word was that was in the works prior to the original release so even poor sales of the main game probably wouldn't of stopped that since it was pretty much a content update and came out only 6 months after the original. 

Though who knows maybe someday many years from now EA will finally make a proir SC5. After all the Diablo2 and Starcraft crowds had to wait a very very long time for Blizzard to get around to making sequals for those games. And because of the popularity of WoW most had given up hope figuring Blizzard was putting all it's effort into it's cash cow. The same way SC fans see EA putting all of it's effort into The Sims 3.

[Apache 0]

Not to be a jerk guys but you either "pay to play" online or "cry and dont buy". I LOVE THIS GAME and I WILL pay to play but thats my choice so either pick another game and put money into it or buy this game and put money into this game...but please stop crying you either play Cities XL waiting for Simcity 5 or 6 or 7 whatever its going to be or you dont buy Cities XL waiting for the next Simcity....SIMPLE!!

[JakeMD 107]

read

Yup.

hey, get off me!

Don't take that tone with me!

ill talk how i wanna talk

[DazzaDazza 29]

well comparing SC to CXL, the main differences I can see is when playing SC4 is your cities never end, you just add more detail to them ass you go, and you don't have to rely on any out side influences to make them, in CXL the game is so heavily based to trading it restricts you and you run out of thing to do quickly, that is the major floor in the game, that and zoning

This is the CXL design team when designing square lots and curved roads

[rhenry 1]

I see a lot of comments that kind of compare CXL to SCS. Well, not even really comparing them as much as lumping them together into the same pile of garbage tossed to the curb. If people are going to compare them then it should be known that CXL is far superior to SCS, without a doubt. If you are only going by what you see written here where people are casually saying "just like SCS, this is a big fat joke" then you're impression is seriously askew.

CXL is definitely lacking in certain areas, especially if you're accustomed to SC4, which has simply had a lot more time to mature.

SCS really was a joke and it's pretty much hopeless. They're not even bothering to release another exp. pack, it was such a terrible game. It's almost laughable to me (sorry!) that people even post CJs about cities made in SCS, they're all so generic looking and lacking in any challenge whatsoever. It took the introduction of Destinations to even get critics to say that it was remotely fun to play and even then they would preface it by noting it was still a worthless game.

CXL is certainly not a worthless game. The things people are complaining about are totally fixable and, save for a complete collapse of monte cristo, they are almost certain to be addressed. When the online site begins to lose it's thunder (remember that a crap load of cities created within the past week are 7 day trials and tons of them will probably disappear as of tomorrow when people opt not to buy) they will begin to weigh the options of releasing exp. packs to the solo game players. Every bit of revenue helps.

Keep in mind that much of what people are crying about not being a part of CXL WERE part of SCS and it was still a horrid game. When CXL does come around and it does release those expansions, it will truly be comparable to SC4. I'm sure of it.

People are resistant. There was a time when SC4 had limited transportation options. There were no mods or custom content. People were probably confused and frustrated when trying to play it and may have even been angry about much of it.

I am not paying for online at this time but I do belong to several online communities of music producers where members of the site pay a small monthly fee for additional features. I don't mind doing it because I am helping to make something 1.) possible and 2.) better.

MC is not some huge corporation with tons of money to lose. They're TRYING to become a major player here. Maybe people really could "invest" a bit in the future development of the game. I for one really would like to play something as visually amazing as this game with all the fun content of SC4 and we all know SC5 is not a part of that possibility and no one else is coming up to at so I can't see what's so terrible about helping someone with a $10 a month "push" in that direction. Give them a chance to add the content you want but don't write it off as hopeless like Societies, a truly horrendous game.

CXL is FAR MORE than halfway between SCS and SC4, being much closer in quality to the latter.

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Originally posted by: rhenry

CXL is definitely lacking in certain areas, especially if you're accustomed to SC4, which has simply had a lot more time to mature.quote>

Definitely true, but on the other hand many of the features I consider lacking in Cities XL were not the result of SC4's maturity, but were part of the game from the beginning;  The mass transit is the most egregious example, but that also goes for the deeper simulation aspects:  crime, education and health simulations, lot development, and a deeper budget simluation to name a few.

CXL is certainly not a worthless game. The things people are complaining about are totally fixable and, save for a complete collapse of monte cristo, they are almost certain to be addressed. When the online site begins to lose it's thunder (remember that a crap load of cities created within the past week are 7 day trials and tons of them will probably disappear as of tomorrow when people opt not to buy) they will begin to weigh the options of releasing exp. packs to the solo game players. Every bit of revenue helps.quote>

I don't think CXL is worthless either;  And I do believe that many of the complaints people have made about Cities XL are unjustified;  Bugs and hiccups are to be expected in any game release this complicated;  Even something like the mass transit is potentially fixable, given a chance.  I'm hopeful that they will improve the single-player game over time.  But that said, I think much of what turns me off personally about the game, namely the shallow simulation aspect, reflects a deliberate design choice rather than an inability to complete the game on time;  I honestly don't think that the game will turn into something I personally want to play long-term even if they do manage to release all the improvements they are planning.

I am not paying for online at this time but I do belong to several online communities of music producers where members of the site pay a small monthly fee for additional features. I don't mind doing it because I am helping to make something 1.) possible and 2.) better.

MC is not some huge corporation with tons of money to lose. They're TRYING to become a major player here. Maybe people really could "invest" a bit in the future development of the game. I for one really would like to play something as visually amazing as this game with all the fun content of SC4 and we all know SC5 is not a part of that possibility and no one else is coming up to at so I can't see what's so terrible about helping someone with a $10 a month "push" in that direction. Give them a chance to add the content you want but don't write it off as hopeless like Societies, a truly horrendous game.quote>

I also don't mind the idea of paying for something valuable, or investing for a non-monetary result, but paying for a product you don't want is not a logical way to do this.  I just posted something on this very issue on my blog:

http://blogs.simtropolis.com/nextgen/index.cfm/2009/10/16/The-ProfitGameplay-Disconnect

But if you don't have time to read it, my basic points are that:

-There is no accountability in such an "investment," that is, there is no way of knowing that they will reinvest it in new features, or that those features will be the ones you want.

-There are inherent inefficiencies due to their basic need to use their revenue for profitability before they use it for reinvestment in their product.

Last of all, yes, I don't think it's fair to compare CXL to SCS, the latter was a poor concept poorly executed, while CXL started with an excellent goal in mind but were unable to meet it, either because of circumstances or because of some poor decisions along the way (possibly both).

[ted527 0]

I find these comments amusing about "shallow simulation aspects" of Cities XL or that the game has no depth. What was so complicated or deep about SC4? The charts and graphs were better, city services felt a bit more like they had a purpose and you could feel what decision you should make next, but overall it was still very basic. I bought CXL because I was bored and expected to hate it but I was pleasantly surprised. I'm happier with it than I was the first day I had SC4. I remember SC4 out of the box was broken.

Having said that, I'm not going to pay for Planet Offer after my trial is up. I'll wait 6 months then come back and see if the content is any good and if the prices have been lowered. But I'm confident that I'll be signing up for PO at some point in the future, and since CXL is already almost as good as Rush Hour, it'll be a lot better in a short while. If there's one complaint about Planet Offer it's that the prices seem too high. But if they can do updates once or twice a week and provide lots of content then maybe they won't have to lower prices at all. I'm just skeptical that people are going to pay so much money for so long. It's not a lot of money in and of itself but when you consider competing gaming experiences then in a comparative sense it's not a good value at all.

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Originally posted by: ted527

I find these comments amusing about "shallow simulation aspects" of Cities XL or that the game has no depth. What was so complicated or deep about SC4? The charts and graphs were better, city services felt a bit more like they had a purpose and you could feel what decision you should make next, but overall it was still very basic.quote>

Perhaps "shallow" is a bad choice of words, as it has a pejorative implication;  There's nothing wrong with Cities XL's simulation, it's just that I personally find it much less sophisticated.  The main reason (and this is the dealbreaker for CXL for me) is that the development is static;  That is, a building, once placed, will never evolve or devolve to a different level of development on it's own.  To me that makes the city feel a little dead, more like a model miniature than a living city.

To look at it another way, think in terms of variables;  Residents in Sim City 4 were modeled with a number of different dynamic variables:  age, wealth, education, security, "happiness" etc.  Their circumstances could change over the long term.  In CXL the residents only have one variable, satisfaction.  It's essentially a simple slider that one must keep above a minimum to keep them from leaving.  Their wealth and education level (i.e. qualified/unqualified) is completely static and interacts in a linear way with their employment.  That's why I mentioned the city services in my previous post:  In SC4, an awful crime rate on it's own would be enough to drive citizens away who were otherwise perfectly satisfied;  In Cities XL a lack of police stations will simply cause a negative influence on their satisfaction "slider".

The upshot of this is that there are no emergent effects in Cities XL, which is what made SC4's simulation so fascinating for me.  You could watch a neighborhood go from working class to wealthy, or vice-versa, without the player having any specific intention towards making that happen.  Decisions would surprise you with unexpected long-term effects.

CXL take a different approach, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I do think it has less complexity than SC4 did.

[jeremy12 0]

Originally posted by: ted527

The upshot of this is that there are no emergent effects in Cities XL, which is what made SC4's simulation so fascinating for me.  You could watch a neighborhood go from working class to wealthy, or vice-versa, without the player having any specific intention towards making that happen.  Decisions would surprise you with unexpected long-term effects.

CXL take a different approach, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I do think it has less complexity than SC4 did.

quote>

this is where the train is going the wrong way for me, make that advance mode toggle this "zoning" changing and show me raw numbers on my road traffic density.   I want details, the details are there just not presented. and some things like buldings upgrading could proboly easily be added

[DazzaDazza 29]

Rhenry wrote :

 

MC is not some huge corporation with tons of money to lose.

 

I would say 100% of companies do go out there to lose there money no matter how much the have, they do that though bad investments, or in this case bad games design. Weather a game company has 100 mill or 20 mill they still should be able to make a decent game, maybe if MC spent more money on designing the core part of the game like zoning and less money on the online part of the game and a crappy trading system, we could be calling it the successor to SC4, but we are not, and is a shame, because after 6 years of playing SC4 at lest 3 to 4 times a week over 50 different regions,  I am bored with it,

 

 And you are right CXL is 100 times better then that abomination called SCS, we should really be comparing it to city life.      

[Mr. Flibble 134]

I have not bought the game, and for the near future won't, but the question CitiesXL will have to answer for me is whether the mere five cities you're allowed in Planet Offer will possibly be enough. I don't care if they release a GEM a month (which they won't), once you've really maxed out your five cities, what will be left to do? Play the totally gimped offline mode while you wait? I've worked on dozens of SC4 cities in numerous regions. I guess you just delete one and start over...

[Androv 6]

It's like having Warcraft characters, you can have a few .... and you need to keep leveling them up or getting them better gear (megastructures)

Maybe they'll let us pay to have more cities in the future? Once population numbers stabilise?

[DazzaDazza 29]

seanivs : you can do 2 thing, open a new account and start 5 new cities

or you can delete one of your old cities to start a new one, unfortunately in city XL your cities have to come to an end, the game is deigned that way, so you don't spend any more then 1 to 2 months on one particular city, all this dose in keeps you moving though the game, much like every other game that make to go to the next stage, 

Call it a bad thing if you wish,,  but I acutely don’t mined it, because I found I loses interest and run out of thing to do quickly in CXL after playing one city of more then 3 weeks, comparing that SC4 I hardly every run out of thing to do but that is the difference between the 2 games       

[Androv 6]

I kind of see the city reaching a 'maximum level' defined by the population / trade restrictions in place. If they release expansion packs / GEMs then it would be fun to bring out your old city and give it a bit of a play

[Tuscan 20]

Originally posted by: RegisteringSucks

Originally posted by: Apache

 To put it simply .."Your either on the new wave of CB games or your stuck playing SC4 until the end of time praying to whoever your god may be for simcity5 to come out" but by then the new wave will be Cities XL 4. The train is about to leave the station........will you be on it with me or will you be holding your SC4 cover box hoping that EA wakes up?.....plain and simplequote>

I think the train's leaving the station, but it's going the wrong way.  I'll sit in the station for now.

Just out of curiosity, aside from it being new, what do you like about CXL?  I'm sure curved roads and updated graphics are two things, but that can't be everything.  What are some examples of other things you like?

quote>

The trains going in the wrong direction you say? More like a train thats about to derail from the tracks lol I think I will be joining your wait at the station.

In fact I already cancelled my order and i just this minute finished installing NAM and SAM for the first time.

[waway625 72]

wait, your city expires in CXL..i was thinking of biting the bullet and buying the game but that just a deal breaker for me

[rhenry 1]

Originally posted by: mrdazza_460

Rhenry wrote :

 

MC is not some huge corporation with tons of money to lose.

 

I would say 100% of companies do go out there to lose there money no matter how much the have, they do that though bad investments, or in this case bad games design. Weather a game company has 100 mill or 20 mill they still should be able to make a decent game, maybe if MC spent more money on designing the core part of the game like zoning and less money on the online part of the game and a crappy trading system, we could be calling it the successor to SC4, but we are not, and is a shame, because after 6 years of playing SC4 at lest 3 to 4 times a week over 50 different regions,  I am bored with it,

 

 And you are right CXL is 100 times better then that abomination called SCS, we should really be comparing it to city life.      

quote>

I bought a City Life 2008 just a few months back because I wanted to see what it was like after reading about it when searching for alternates to SC. that's actually how I heard about CXL. But I couldn't run it because of my graphics card and I had paid 5 bucks for it on amazon so I was not about to replace a graphics card just to play it. But when CXL came and I couldn't launch it either so I decided to get the card upgrade.

Well, the other day I went ahead and I installed City Life again and opened it up and was just stunned at how incredibly AWFUL it was. The characters in there are downright creepy and the graphics are hideous.

what a horrid game.

And the worst part was that all of the intro artwork and graphics were really cool.

Yeah, that was a bad BAD game. I went on line and found there are actually communities of people with CJ's about their City Life cities and when you look at them they're just so ugly. It almost looks like some freeware city builder. lol.

[rhenry 1]

Originally posted by: waway625

wait, your city expires in CXL..i was thinking of biting the bullet and buying the game but that just a deal breaker for mequote>

What does that mean? Like if you don't play it or even if you're keeping it up? How long does it have?

[waway625 72]

im asking..in reference to an earlier post

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

[Androv 6]

I think that person was suggesting that s/he feels that you can't progress any further with a particular city after a while, and therefore deletes that city and starts afresh. If you want to keep your cities, then I'm sure you'll be able to - it would be like Blizzard deleting your Warcraft character after they reached maximum level

[Soviet779 1]

Cities XL cant compare to simcity 4 in any way shape or form because simcity 4 is an actual complex city simulator, cities xl is a shallow glorified version of simcity societies

Face it, this game sucks, even the people who bought it are getting bored because theres no real simulation here and the online portion is rubbish, a chatroom and resource trading? for 7.99 a month? they gotta be kidding...

Maybe its not trying to be complex like simcity some say, well what is it trying to be? Shallow? Boring? Expensive? None of these are desireable traits. Im not adverse to things being done differently, but they have to be done well to work, unfortunately cities xl was not done well. Comparing it to a 6 year old friggin EA game, yes maxis was completely under EA's vile grip when they made simcity 4 so cities XL not comparing favourably to a pretty ancient EA game just says it all.

Maybe the future updates will improve the game others say, well ive played enough games to know that if core gameplay is shallow and no fun then its not gonna be fixed by any patch or add on. Look at spore, that was a massive dissapointment, a year on have expansions and add ons drastically improved its gameplay? No, it still sucks. A game must at least have good core gameplay from the get go irrelivent of bugs or incompatabilities, if the gameplays not there then the game will never be any good. Left 4 dead was another one with promised updates etc (i like left 4 dead btw) but really have the updates and improvements made the game better since the start, no its still got the same core gameplay which you still wont like today if you didnt like it at release a year ago. WoW is another example, if you didnt like it years ago you still wont like it today either, same core gameplay. My point in short is patches, add ons and expansions wont improve the core game, it will still suck a year from now like it does today.

[Androv 6]

I'm bored? Really???? ...

There are a lot of people chatting online, and you can visit other cities as well. Some of the 5,000,000 citizen cities are fantastic, much better than reading a city journal