Constructive Criticism And Ideas To Improve Cities XL

[zwr100 2]

I haven't played single player mode.  I'm glad there is a asingle player mode so when my internet provider fails to provide internet I can go play single player mode and do some experimenting.  This is one of the only online games I've ever played that has an offline mode at all.

IMO they could have left it out altogether - then you'd have something to complain about.

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: zwr100

I haven't played single player mode.  I'm glad there is a asingle player mode so when my internet provider fails to provide internet I can go play single player mode and do some experimenting.  This is one of the only online games I've ever played that has an offline mode at all.

IMO they could have left it out altogether - then you'd have something to complain about.quote>

I couldn't agree more. Online is a lot of fun. It's really nice to be able to visit other cities and get creative ideas from them, plus the trading is really cool. Yeah there are bugs, but that is common with most software (is anyone expecting Windows 7 to come out tomorrow without any bugs really?).

[sthudig 0]

Originally posted by: Mathew_MC

Thanks for all the feedback guys and thanks Sparky66 for putting it all on the first page.

I am compiling and reorganizing it to forward it to the devs. quote>

...and when are these people going to have an answer for us? When will we get fair value for the forty dollars we paid?

[lots 0]

My biggest want is make the core gameplay you have now solid, stable, and fast. I can run the game at max detail, yet because of some overhead on the CPU my framerate is pretty much stuck in the sub 20s no matter what graphics setting im at. Mostly only on my larger cities, but those cities are only 120k pop at most...

Get the roads to work better (as some of these suggestions have mentioned), fix the various services, leisure, whatever so that they behave correctly (for example i hear schools are kinda funky). Fix the performance problems

Fix performance, and then for me the rest is icing on the cake...

Did I mention performance?

EDIT: I forgot to mention: Thanks Mathew for getting this list to the devs! 

[JakeMD 107]

(thread read)

-Cheese89

[gyzzzmo 0]

Importing employees doesnt work, buildings who need them dont see imported citizen tokens as workers.

[mentarman 14]

I want to strongly second:

* Cheats (in solo mode at least.) Like a lot of people I am more interested in making the kinds of city I want than worrying about some of the challenges the game designers want us to worry about.

And suggest:

* Smaller lots and better small stuff to fill in empty, odd-shaped spaces between zoned lots. Right now, any cities with some weird angled roads will have a lot of little gaps that result in a city that doesn't look very urban. It ends up looking sort of suburban.

[ForceInfinity 0]

Originally posted by: gyzzzmo

Last thing, MC really has to repair the trading issues ASAP. I'm at the point that i have to stop playing the game, just because i cannot trade between cities anymore: Contracts between own cities get broken for no reason while according to the token, freight, passenger and cash numbers there should be no problem.

I'm sure MC realises this themselves; What is the point of paying for the game if even the most basic (and important) feature (trading) of Planet Mode fails?quote>

Hey Gyzz, I think I read in another thread straight from MC itself that the trade functionality in PO is *the* top priority at the moment along with more meaningful updates than the hotfixes that have been showing up as of late.  So I suppose the good news is that the devs are painfully aware of the issue and are working on it.

[jeremy12 0]

Originally posted by: ForceInfinity

Originally posted by: gyzzzmo

Last thing, MC really has to repair the trading issues ASAP. I'm at the point that i have to stop playing the game, just because i cannot trade between cities anymore: Contracts between own cities get broken for no reason while according to the token, freight, passenger and cash numbers there should be no problem.

I'm sure MC realises this themselves; What is the point of paying for the game if even the most basic (and important) feature (trading) of Planet Mode fails?quote>

Hey Gyzz, I think I read in another thread straight from MC itself that the trade functionality in PO is *the* top priority at the moment along with more meaningful updates than the hotfixes that have been showing up as of late.  So I suppose the good news is that the devs are painfully aware of the issue and are working on it.quote>

Web trading is down right now so that leads me to belive there is more fixes on the way, also the last 2 hot fixes were minor changes to trading

[Livin in Sim 83]

Heads up, incoming thread. 

[Kredit 0]

Hey all,

I thought I'd start a thread for suggestions  I know there's a few threads "suggesting" things already... but I've got a specific idea for this one!

What I'd like to see is a collection of suggestions that only ADD to the gameplay. So no "remove wealth-zoning" or "remove trading" or "PO SUCKS!" 

 

Also, it's a thread for suggesting NEW things, not complaining about already existing things. So it's fine to say "Leisure should be part of commerce, except for things like musea, they should be city services", but not "leisure is teh stoopid, remoof plx!" 

In short: positive suggestions, not negative commentary!

I'll start of with a few of mine. I'll also try to add any new suggestions as they get posted.

Here goes:

1. Inter-city trade interface

 

An interface that allows you to view resource stats for all your cities on one planet at once, and reassign them without buying/selling (so if City A has 2 excess office tokens, and City B needs one, you can just "give" it to City B, bypassing the trade system)

 

Allows you to maximise   between your cities. Prevents "personal trades" to influence the statistics on the Market (buy offers for .5 c and such)

 

2. "Guilds"

 

Allow cities to form or join a "guild", which has accces to a private chat channel, a private Guild Market Place. Many more options can be considered: Guild trades (guild members buy/sell to the guild, the guild buys/sells to the outside market), Guild taxes/funds/loans, special buildings only available to guild-members of a guild over a certain size, a special "guild management city" (guild leader can place city services and utilities, members can place housing and businesses or something), etc. etc.

 

Increases online functionality and interaction (both gameplay and social)

 

3. More Upgrade functions

 

Upgrade structure:        -Low density to Med density and vice versa.

                                    -Change to a specific building (after the building has been built)

Upgrade road:              -Upgrade to a bigger road (either expanding to free space or    

                                    demolishing if no space available)

 

4. Upgrades to the current trade system:

 

-Sort current trades by type/resource

-Post "combined individual" sales. (I post 5 office tokens for 100c, so 20c per token. A buyer can choose to buy 1-5 depending on his/her needs.)

-Include more information in trade message ("a contract was suspended due to insufficient tokens" … great…. Which city, which resource, was I out of tokens or the other person… So: "Trade cancelled: City X, 20c <-> City B, 1 office token. Reason: Insufficient tokens (city B)" for instance…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Parks

 

Allow free-zone park placing, remove size-limit on fill-in park tool. Apply the enviroment bonus for all types of park, or grant different bonuses for the other types.

Increase variety in cities. Special bonuses for certain parks could be used to "fix" problems in cities.

 

 

6. "Fill in" options for empty areas left by zoning tool

 

These empty areas are now filled by something that looks like wooded park area, but doesn't do anything. So you have to destroy it and then place park….

Add an option to choose what to fill this with: Either nothing, or one of the parks from decorations.

 

Would save a lot of time and useless bulldozing.

 

7. Auto terraforming

 

Basically, when trying to place a structure that can't be placed because of "ground error", instead of not allowing it to be placed, add an option "adjust ground", which would terraform the ground so that the structure can be placed.

Update 1:

8. Roads:

could we have exit/merging lanes? Would make some road junctions cooler  (Androv)

[Androv 6]

I like some of these suggestions, especially the guild one!

Roads:

could we have exit/merging lanes? Would make some road junctions cooler

Merging this with the Constructive Criticism And Ideas To Improve Cities XL thread.

--Liv

[Kredit 0]

Dear Mod,

Thanks for "merging" my thread into this one... however, I intentionally started a seperate thread, because the subject is different... there's a massive difference between "constructive criticism" (ie. telling people they suck in a nice way) and "suggestions" (ie. having an original idea that you would like to see implemented). The list in this thread is a compilation of bugreports, complaints, suggestions and rants, whereas I wished to compile a list with exclusively "suggestions".

So either something new to be added, or a new way to handle something existing...

Now of course it's at your discretion whether or not you agree and put my thread back, but I'd be much obliged

[Livin in Sim 83]

Originally posted by: Kredit

Dear Mod,

Thanks for "merging" my thread into this one... however, I intentionally started a seperate thread, because the subject is different... there's a massive difference between "constructive criticism" (ie. telling people they suck in a nice way) and "suggestions" (ie. having an original idea that you would like to see implemented). The list in this thread is a compilation of bugreports, complaints, suggestions and rants, whereas I wished to compile a list with exclusively "suggestions".

So either something new to be added, or a new way to handle something existing...

Now of course it's at your discretion whether or not you agree and put my thread back, but I'd be much obliged quote>

I had just PMed you, and listed out some of my reasoning for merging it.  I think both the threads were started with same intention, and there is potential for going astray in any thread.  I'm hoping we're heading in a more positive direction lately, and the perk about this thread is that MC has visited it, so it's on their radar.  This thread has stayed on Page 1 for quite some time as well, so was hoping your input might not become buried, as it is a great post.  But, after further thought on my part, if you really have doubts about your objective being met in this thread, you have my permission to copy your post (just edit it, select everything, ctrl-c) and start another new topic, then delete your post here.  This would be the easiest fix.  I can tidy up the rest in this thread.

Thanks for your understanding, and enjoy the forums.

--Liv

[Kredit 0]

Originally posted by: Livin in Sim

Originally posted by: Kredit

Dear Mod,

Thanks for "merging" my thread into this one... however, I intentionally started a seperate thread, because the subject is different... there's a massive difference between "constructive criticism" (ie. telling people they suck in a nice way) and "suggestions" (ie. having an original idea that you would like to see implemented). The list in this thread is a compilation of bugreports, complaints, suggestions and rants, whereas I wished to compile a list with exclusively "suggestions".

So either something new to be added, or a new way to handle something existing...

Now of course it's at your discretion whether or not you agree and put my thread back, but I'd be much obliged quote>

I had just PMed you, and listed out some of my reasoning for merging it.  I think both the threads were started with same intention, and there is potential for going astray in any thread.  I'm hoping we're heading in a more positive direction lately, and the perk about this thread is that MC has visited it, so it's on their radar.  This thread has stayed on Page 1 for quite some time as well, so was hoping your input might not become buried, as it is a great post.  But, after further thought on my part, if you really have doubts about your objective being met in this thread, you have my permission to copy your post (just edit it, select everything, ctrl-c) and start another new topic, then delete your post here.  This would be the easiest fix.  I can tidy up the rest in this thread.

Thanks for your understanding, and enjoy the forums.

--Liv

quote>

Ah yes sorry, missed the pm and no problem, I see what you mean and I think it's a good idea actually... maybe the OP of this thread could sort the list on bugs/suggestions/rants/other? 

[baertooth 330]

This is what I would do if I were doing a Planet Offer on my own version of Cities XL.

I would make it so the the cities rendered on the planet when viewing from space making it a sort of "white board" to draw cities on.  Then I would make it so anyone could log onto most cities on most of the planets.  That means most cities are public and people can contribute to the construction of a city.  Of course, defacers and griefers would be banned or handcuffed as the situation warrented.  And I would make it so if someone started to work on a city, they could reserve that city for maybe 24-48 hours to re-log back in and continue work and to possible re-reserve the city again.  When a city becomes inactive or unreserved, someone else can log in and be mayor to that city and affect their own changes.

1) I would then change the reward system and the statistics page to reflect more personal achievements and document what cities one has worked on, how much money they have made, and so forth.  I think this could open up "personality play", or role playing mayor types like tycoon or villian or dictator or benefactor.  I would also create a reward system where mayors can earn "Keys to the City" tokens which can be spent on perks or prestige items like buildings and special abilities.

2) This would also open up possibilities like "Hall of Fame Planet" for the best work and prestige planets where access can be purchased with Keys.

3) This would also change the 5 city limit to something more substantial for the money spent.

I would also change the trade system so you can only trade with cities that are connected by logical travel.  Such as cities connected by rail or roads, or by shipping docks.  I would institute bargining penalties for abruptly canceling contracts.  Such as putting so much money into the planet bank and if the contract is breached the injured city gets the pot.

I would also make it so very inactive cities reset every so often so there are fresh maps to start on occasionally.

[jeremy12 0]

seeing as to how trade is a constant topic in here: http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1753&Itemid=128

Trade improvements

October 23, 2009, 5:16 pm

We introduced some changes to the way the ingame trade is being handled by our servers, which will greatly improve performances and solve remaining lag issues in the Marketplace.   Though most of the changes are server-side and thus not visible for the player, two modifications have also been made regarding contracts:     1) Trade offers only stay in the Market Place for two days. After this period, they are removed if they have not been has accepted by another player. 2) When the terms of a contract cannot be fulfilled anymore due to lack of tokens or passenger/fret, it now becomes “in danger” for an hour. A contract that is “in danger” remains active. This means your city keeps exporting the tokens and you have an hour to sort out the issue that jeopardized the contract. If you do so, your contract will immediately become active again; otherwise it will be cancelled once the hour has gone by. You can also cancel it manually from the “Contracts in danger” tab under “City Status” in the trade window if you think it will be too difficult to set things right again.   Note that if your contract becomes “in danger” because you lacked the resource tokens to trade, you won’t be able to set up any trade contract for this specific token (including importing it) until the contract becomes active again or cancelled.  If it is because of a lack of freight or passenger, you won’t be able to set up any other trade contract for any kind of token relying on the transport type in cause. Thus, if you were exporting holidays and your passengers go beyond the needed value to sustain the contract, you won’t be able to trade holidays, workers, office services or business hotels anymore while your contract is in danger.   Our next step with the trading is to improve the feedback provided by the trade interface so that messages about contracts are clearer. We will also be able to release the first blueprints soon now. The first content pack is also shaping up nicely, and more detailed information and screenshots will be published early next week.   Have fun in Cities XL!

 

[soldyne 111]

I would like to see a road planning tool. basically it would be another option to go along with all the current road types (and other future transit types like rail, subway, etc). it would cost nothing to use. when you use it, it would lay down a "ghost" road (transparent) and would not be usable by the simulation. this would allow you to plan out a large city with a complex road system (beyond just the standard grid) without paying for huge construction or upkeep costs. after the ghost road is laid down you could click on it and a pop up would ask if you want to build this section of road.

[Cthuulhu 0]

More realistic tourism model, sure Aspen and Aruba draw crowds for their natural beauty but the current model doesn't leave room for the London or Paris type situations of tourism. Perhaps areas near cultural attractions should have a green zone where tourist hotels can be built. Since tourism isn't a natural resource I think the game should give it more flexability. People don't go to Bourbon Street for ski lodges and they don't go to the Versailles for its phenominal fly fishing... catch my drift?

[ForceInfinity 0]

I would like to see the ability to have exit, entrance ramps to/from freeways from the overpass. An example would be if you had a viaduct freeway (like I-70 in Denver Colorado, Cap. City Freeway in Sacramento, 880 Freeway near the McArthur Maze in Oakland) that you can exit ramps or entry ramps from the viaduct portion of the freeway. Hope the examples given help to make the suggestion make more sense.

[DazzaDazza 29]

Different size lots, they don't even have to be odd shaped just different sized rectangles,

40x40 20x20

40x20 20x10

30x30 10x10

Anything other then just 40X40, what I would give for a 10x10 house, that would solve a lot of wasted space.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

20x20 should be possible but 10, 30, and 50 might not. I want separation of architecture styles (SimCity 300 and 4 deluxe had that) and a new architecture style consisting of City Life buildings. I would also like city life people (cleaned up and with added variation of textures) added into the game. I would also like service related rewards (high education unlocks cold fusion, not high population). I would also like the bureau of bureaucracy, secondary City Halls, and tertiary (Community Centers) ones as well, they can act as security/police (or multipliers), environment and the "Welfare Community Centers" would also act as 1 shop, 1 medium cultural leisure, 1 elementary school, and one small medical center or clinic (whichever is cheaper).

[DazzaDazza 29]

Yep I can live with 20x20, I guess

The demand for retail in your city needs to be dubbed and then dubbed again; there should be as much retail as offices, if not more. And also your city demands offices way too early in the game, I would like multiple zone lots i.e., residential and commercial

And please in single player can we just build farms anywhere, there are some maps where I can't build them at all, it frustrating me to no end

[Ocram's Razr 964]

It kind of makes sense to have some areas without fertile land but I would love a "Planet Offer Bonus Pack" that included ploppable farms, dairies, orchards, plantations, et cetera that could be placed anywhere and still produce food but would cost money to the city to build.

[moaku 74]

I already suggested "half-sized" lots to MC... would make the city feel more "gridy" and free zoning would be more usefull... if it was not so "space-wasting", free-zone tool would be great, that's where half sized lots would help. MC simply answered that it does not match their zone placement tool logic, so unfortunately, they will probably not "fix" that... From Day 1 of the beta I kinda disliked this "unique lots size" rule... well, not a deal-killer like other warming requested features like mass trans. but I totally agree that at least half-sized lot sizes woud add a lot to my enjoyement of the game...

Haven't experimented it yet, but from what I know yet, via modding it should be possible to reduce lots size, but unfortunately, if that work the way it seems to, this would reduce all zones of this type, so, in the best scenario, modding would eventually allow to add "half-sized-lots zones", but they would be totally independent than "normal sized", just like another zone type. so, free zone tool would never combine 2 sizes of lots this way, and would also require to change the scale of corresponding buildings and deal with the issues it would bring... so since it's the best possible scenario I see for a such mod for now, I won't experiment around it yet, at least until I think the game engine allows to do a such combinaison, which could take long or even never happen... so let's hope MC will at some point redo the whole zoning tools section, and add a such feature to it

[JanYpe 17]