A Pause Button, please

[SimBurger 0]

If I am missing something, I hope someone will correct me.

I really would like a pause button on the PO version of the game.

Its so stressful having to race against the clock to get things done, when the clock never stops, and things change so quickly.

At no point do you ever get to actually sit back and enjoy your city. 

At no point can you zoom down onto the street and actually walk around.  

At no point do you get to appreciate what you've built.  

At no point can you really handcraft and organize anything.  Layout, structure, etc.

Everything is built on the fly.  In a hurry.

30 seconds of walking your own streets - you see businesses begin to fail, contract cancellations popping up, unemployment rising, food shortages, etc etc etc.

Some have said you can get your city to a "status quo" and relax a bit, but I have found that not to be true.  Even then, you can't go more than a couple minutes without getting behind and adversely affecting your city in some way.

PS - mods - please dont let this thread turn into a discussion about people who hate the auto-pause.  This is a different topic.

[JakeMD 107]

In my opinion a pause feature is not realistic, and for a Planet Offer (online play) where your trade partner relies on you producing whatever you can't pause your city, that would be a to cheat. Also, say you want to upgrade a road, you can't pause real life. You must create a way around or something like that. Then you upgrade your infrastructure.

[SimBurger 0]

1) You can completely pause the game in the single player version, so its a feasible request.

2) The game auto pauses after 1 minute in PO mode already, trades and all.  You just can't browse your own city and enjoy what you've built, because it automatically unpauses.

Pause is implemented in this game already - in a few different ways - so I don't really consider it a new thing, or anything that would be unrealistic.  I don't view it as something that would support cheating either.  Just my opinion.

SB

[JakeMD 107]

See, the Single player would be different with a pause button. In single player, you don't have another person playing their city in real time. You just have omnicorp, which can be paused along with the game.

[0wn3d 2]

I'm not sure how you can't get to the state where you can kinda leave your city, but in every city I've built I can basically just do nothing... and nothing changes. I've had times where I'm just in the game and clicking around/unpausing the auto pause every once in a while, if I'm doing something else and want to keep making some money.

[DCMetro34 576]

I remember this from the beta, it's come back to me. I submitted a ticket for this very issue. Look where it's gotten us. I'm not saying every ticket must be listened too, but I'm pretty sure this was complained about more than once.

[SimBurger 0]

Originally posted by: swat-medic

See, the Single player would be different with a pause button. In single player, you don't have another person playing their city in real time. You just have omnicorp, which can be paused along with the game.quote>

I understood that.  That is why I put # 2 in my post above:

2) The game auto pauses after 1 minute in PO mode already, trades and all. 

[SimBurger 0]

Originally posted by: 0wn3d

I'm not sure how you can't get to the state where you can kinda leave your city, but in every city I've built I can basically just do nothing... and nothing changes. I've had times where I'm just in the game and clicking around/unpausing the auto pause every once in a while, if I'm doing something else and want to keep making some money.quote>

I've had a TOTALLY different experience than that.  Existing trades start popping up cancelled, or dropped, or expire.  New needs do come up even if you don't build more stuff.  Traffic, businesses need more workers as they grow.  The city always has an ebb and flow and needs to be attended to in my experience.   

Another important point was raised above.  A pause is no different than closing the game down, or the auto pause.  The auto pause enables trades to keep going, and they do expire while the auto pause is on.  Its just a server save. 

SB

[EAGCE 2]

Originally posted by: SimBurger

Originally posted by: 0wn3d

I'm not sure how you can't get to the state where you can kinda leave your city, but in every city I've built I can basically just do nothing... and nothing changes. I've had times where I'm just in the game and clicking around/unpausing the auto pause every once in a while, if I'm doing something else and want to keep making some money.quote>

I've had a TOTALLY different experience than that.  Existing trades start popping up cancelled, or dropped, or expire.  New needs do come up even if you don't build more stuff.  Traffic, businesses need more workers as they grow.  The city always has an ebb and flow and needs to be attended to in my experience.   

Another important point was raised above.  A pause is no different than closing the game down, or the auto pause.  The auto pause enables trades to keep going, and they do expire while the auto pause is on.  Its just a server save. 

SBquote>

Only thing you should worry about is the cancelled/expired trades.  Just because you get a message saying your city needs more of X or Y doesn't mean it needs to happen right away or at all.

[gyzzzmo 0]

I have no idea why you wouldnt have any time for leisuring through your city, even if it got big. What is there to bother if your cashflow is positive? By taking your time just looking in/ar your city you'll only increase the amount of money wich is a very useful thing to have.

Maybe its your own urge to build stuff that is the problem.

[Kredit 0]

Well I'm not the most experienced player, but with all of my cities I can usually just sit and watch it generate money.... of course, cancelled trades need to be dealt with, but 1 token more or less usually doesn't make the difference.

I'm not opposed to a pause button (which allows you to keep building), however, it would change the game.

As you point out, you "don't have the time" to walk around, fix problems, etc. Add a pause button, and you do have the time. Which means the game's changed. (Most notably, it's become more easy)

Once again, I'm not against the idea, but for what you want to do, you shouldn't need it... ironically, I suspect your problem might actually be that you're building to fast (if you start with high density zones to quickly it will be very hard to balance everything).

Basically, if you get unemployement to around 3-4% for all groups (with 100% home filling), satisfaction no lower than 50-60% and no resources in the red, you should be able to watch your city run it's course, without anything changing.

However, if one or more of the resources is in the red, one or more of the pop groups is unhappy (<50%) or there's not enough people for the industry (in other words, if your city is not balanced), this will cause effects throughout the city, which can cause other effects, and so on and so forth... before you know it, you're in a downwards spiral.

[chkltcow 0]

Originally posted by: swat-medic

In my opinion a pause feature is not realistic, quote>

A bowling alley costing a city $5000/month isn't realistic either... yet we got that

[ifurkend 0]

Adding a pause button in PO can only be beneficial. You can pause the game and set up a new contract w/o leaving the game or watching your city goes into bankruptcy while looking for a new contractor. The game will auto-pause when no input is made for a certain span. So the "ever-consistency" doesn't exist in the Planet. Cities are consistently progressing only when the player is active.

Still CXL is not a traditional MMOgame but a revolutionary MMOCBG. Players should be allowed to sightsee their own city at any given time regardless of the critical state of the city. Otherwise it would not qualify as a City Building Game.

[zwr100 2]

A pause button would be a really nice feature.  I chose to play CitiesXL because I love MMOs, but need to be able to intereact with my real life environment.  I used to play World of Warcraft where you can't go afk for a second, so even without a pause CitiesXL is a vast improvement.  I've learned to make really balanced stable cities that don't need constant attention, and I've learned to build fast or have contingency plans.

Building takes time - especially since the interface isn't totally perfect (bridges anyone?) and we're all somewhat new to the game.

Quick story:

The city I'm currently working on has an avenue running around the perimeter.  The traffic was heavy so I decided to build a second avenue right next to it.  I had to bulldoze some stuff to make it fit.  I actually ended up building half the new avenue outside the original and half inside the original.  Thus I decided to piece together half the original avenue with the inside portion of the new one and the other half with the outside one.  HOWEVER, since I was hurrying, I accidentally clicked bulldoze on a portion of my new avenue instead of a building and since it had no intersections I deleted a really long painstakingly made road   How about an 'undo' button I finished the road and quit for the night.  I learned to make unneccessary intersections so accidental deletions don't destroy big sections of road - a pause button would be much preferred.

[Kredit 0]

Originally posted by: ifurkend

Adding a pause button in PO can only be beneficial. You can pause the game and set up a new contract w/o leaving the game or watching your city goes into bankruptcy while looking for a new contractor. The game will auto-pause when no input is made for a certain span. So the "ever-consistency" doesn't exist in the Planet. Cities are consistently progressing only when the player is active.

Still CXL is not a traditional MMOgame but a revolutionary MMOCBG. Players should be allowed to sightsee their own city at any given time regardless of the critical state of the city. Otherwise it would not qualify as a City Building Game.quote>

I agree on the last part, though that could easily be realised by adding a "view" option to the city, where you view it as another player would..

[shawnfog 0]

All the more reason they should never have bothered with turning this game into an MMO, if you can even call it that. A city builder has not place being an online game.

[Androv 6]

I don't mind the lack of a pause button, it makes me think before demolishing a critical road which is what real life city planners need to do (not, "oh let's replace this two lane road with a 4 lane road overnight).

Your city should be stable enough to leave it for a few minutes / hours anyway.

[Kredit 0]

Originally posted by: shawnfog

All the more reason they should never have bothered with turning this game into an MMO, if you can even call it that. A city builder has not place being an online game.

quote>

And what's with these women, wanting to wear trousers, and work...?!?! Ridiculous! 

[Livin in Sim 83]

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