A Newbie's Views

[Kredit 0]

Hello all,

I've just bought CXL a few days ago, after a friend showed me the site. I hadn't played any sim-games seriously since the original SimCity and Civilisation, it looked cool, so I decided to give it a try.

Reading these forums I noticed that most people here are experienced sim-players, mostly SC4 vets. Since my background is rather different, and I assume there'll be more like me, I thought I'd share my views on the game so far.

Ok, as I said the last city builder I played was SimCity (and to be honest, I mostly cheated to get limitless cash, build huge cities and then release godzilla...) so while I had a general idea of how a city-builder works, I had no experience with any recent ones. This being the case, I started with the tutorial. Since it's only the tutorial I'll be brief: It worked well enough to introduce me to the basic controls (though I'm sure I'd have figured them out either way) and it explained the basics of building a city. The attempt at humor failed, but meh. One thing I found unclear was how many tutorials there were. I did a few and then I saw a list, but didn't know if they were new ones... so I just went on and started my first city. (yes, I could've checked... but I'm lazy and wanted to start playing)

So, Solo Play or Online Play? I've been playing MMORPG's for over 6 years now, so I was naturally drawn toward the MMO part...

But is it MMO or not? Well, it's Online, it's Multiplayer... is it Massive? Yup, one "planet" holds 10000 cities, that's a minimum of 2000 (and max 10000) players on one server, which would be respectable figures for any MMO.

That said, the actuall interaction with other players is minimal. Apart from chatting and viewing eachothers cities (which are nice features) there's only Trade. Since this can be done through an auction-system, you don't actually interact with people. Personally, I find enough enjoyment in just building my city right now and I think the monthly fee is fine if it's simply for use of the servers and (content)updates for the game. But, I must admit that I instantly started thinking about other ways to interact with other players, and obviously there's loads of potential... so while I think it's good now, I do hope they'll expand on this in the future. That said, simply the fact that my city is online, visible to others and persistent, is enough to win me to the online side. But that's just me.

On to the game itself! My first city (Reigerburgh on Caliban, if anyone's interested) started out without any kind of plan. Basically, I just put down what the game told me I needed for a while, in a way that I thought looked good, and all was well!

But then, after a while, income started dropping, people started complaining... so I dived into the various menus to find out what was happening. And that's when the game got interesting. Because I couldn't.

Well, at least not at first... but then, by trying some different things, playing with taxes, roads, public services, I started to discover little interdependencies... and by using what I found, I managed to get the budget back in black, keep the residents happy and expand the city again.

I think I hit my first "hurdle" at around 100k population (traffic, that one). Then another at about 200k, one more at 350k, again at close to 500k, and the most recent one at close to 700k, which I'm still working on now. Each time I discover more about how my city works. Quite enjoyable (at least to a sim-***** like me)!

Looking back now, it would have payed off to do some basic planning in advance, as my city is a bit jumbled-up and pieced together with bits of string and cello-tape, but it's not really necessary. The upside is that my city feels more real to me than a perfectly layed-out hyper-efficient metropolis would. Also, this is probably the best way to learn how the game works, as you are bound to cause problems which you then have to solve again!

All in all I think it's a very enjoyable game, which, at least to a sim-*****, seems to offer enough depth and variety (though of course only time will tell). I also see lots of potential for improving and expanding, so let's hope they'll do that as well!

Edit: Changed title since ***** is sensored here

Edit 2: Ok, so even spelling Newbie as n o o b but with 2 0's instead of o's isn't allowed... they must really dislike n oo bs here!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Originally posted by: Kredit

Ok, as I said the last city builder I played was SimCity (and to be honest, I mostly cheated to get limitless cash, build huge cities and then release godzilla...) so while I had a general idea of how a city-builder works, I had no experience with any recent ones. quote>

Don't take this as any kind of attack or offense, but if all you did was cheat and then let Godzilla wreak havoc, then you apparently had no idea of how a city-builder works.   Hence I think that the difference in your case is not your long break from city-builders, but rather your general preference for a way of playing that has little to do with what most of the SimCity crowd assembled here have come to like.

I just thought I'd mention that; I'm not really interested in all those discussions about games being touted as potential successors to SimCity because in the end they all turned out to be rather different. Your rather enthusiastic view as someone who is clearly not into the "SimCity way of city building" only serves to confirm this impression once again.

Once again, I'm not saying this to attack you in any way - you seem to have a different taste, and that's perfectly fine. I hope you enjoy what you're playing (whatever that may be), and it's sure interesting to read about the hands-on experience from someone with a different taste. I like the idea of your thread, and the fact that you contributed a different view on CXL.

Originally posted by: KreditEdit 2: Ok, so even spelling Newbie as n o o b but with 2 0's instead of o's isn't allowed... they must really dislike n oo bs here! quote>

Nope. In fact, they love them so much that they hate people who call them "n 0 0 bs" instead of politically correct terms like "less experienced players" or "beginners".

[Kredit 0]

Not taken as an attack at all the reason I put it in there is to illustrate my lack of experience with city-builders. However, it's not as bad as I make it out to be, I just meant that while I enjoyed that game, I was never exactly a hardcore (or very good) player (I was also about 12, 13 or so... which means I had a different approach to things than I have now, at 31) and so while I know the "basics" of a city builder (balance different zones, keep residents happy, fight polution, etc.) I started this game with a "fresh" view, not expecting SC5 or anything for that matter.

Rest assured though that I'm playing this one cheat-free, and Godzilla has not made an appearance yet What I like about this game, opposed to what I remember of SC, is that it feels more "dynamic" in a way, not always telling you exactly what's wrong where, so you actually have to study your city to see what works and what doesn't. (but maybe SC4 did that much better still...)

Regarding the "inexperienced players", I know I was just surprised they found n oob so offensive especially considering I was calling myself a ***** I never got the whole "n oob" as insult thing, but than again, I also don't really care what others think of my skills in an online game ^^

[Spritzen 0]

I played SC4 a little, was actually heavily into 2000 more back when it was released. In the spirit of the OP, I thought I'd do the same and share my view from a different angle, seeing as I've been mostly away from teh city building side of this for so long. I downloaded the game on the 8th from steam, not realising that it was actually the live release date, so that was a plesent surprise in it's self, up to that point I've not been following any press or players comments on the beta.

After running through the tutorials, the first thing I did was jump striaght into PO, as it's free for a week I thought I'd see how that was and whether it was worth it or not. The live chat was nice but spam city and full of negativity, also it went by so quick most sensible questions were drowned by doom and gloom. So I moved that off the page so it was barely visable to get my own view. I dived in fast, too fast it seemed, my old view of starting to zone off huge areas and laying down lots of roads from SC style of play. That soon got me into trouble! But fun trouble and a good learning curve, lots of issues like over supplying and over populating certain areas, poor traffic management and a like. This was like I said a good thing taught me that I should start smaller and grow slower.

I've recently started a new city on the new UK planet, a plot that's a bit bigger and open with a nice balance of resources. And I done just what I said before started slow and had a lot more planning in mind. Before I even went into laying things down I worked out where I eventually wanted industry, oil, water, farms and some ideas on housing etc. This is working out very nicely, although I do find I'm looking at the unemployment statistics window a lot, and it's annoying that it closes everytime I want to do something like put down a high pop building.

The thing that's addicting is the way it enforces you to play real time, growing things slowely with balancing gettin more and more difficult and of coarse designing your own sweet looking/running city. Cetainly I'd like to see more things I can alter, like a more detailed tax affector. I also think it's a shame that education/crime/fire etc.. are quite a hollow feature. More street level noises would be nice too. I will be looking forward to see how the GEMs are going to work, they certainly sound like a good addition.

After the 2nd day playing it I payed for 3 more months of PO, knowing 2 things. 1. updates will happen & 2. I already enjoyed playing PO and could immediatly see the benifits of the trade system and being able to play with friends (even if it is only to look at what each other is doing and do some trading).

Sorry that turned into a bit of a long post!

[Kredit 0]

That seems to be quite in line with how I'm experiencing the game, except I stuck with my first city, got it to 680k now, but growing further will require major changes So now I'm starting a second city to get other resources so they can support eachother, and this one I'll plan a bit more careful.

Nice to hear your story!