The end of planet offer

[Brady Baker 1]

For me, this is promising news. I thoroughly enjoyed PO but was unhappy about certain things. Most of them were the same things most everyone has already talked about. I haven't played CXL since before Christmas (renewed interest in TS3) I will continue to watch the developments of CX2011 and see where it goes. May just get back into it.

[soltangris 42]

Well, I didn't expect such an abrupt end on PO either.... but it might be for the better. Cities XL is indeed a single player city-builder, and the online features they offered were simply not enough to turn it into something unique.

So, with the end of PO and the time and effort it took to brainstorm how to divide the game in two when one was completely sufficient.... we will (hopefully) get a complete, polished and more rapidly evolving single player game.

As long as I understood CXL2011 will be something like a Megapatch to convert CXL Single Mode into the new CXL Game. They say in their FAQ that 'The packs as well as Cities XL 2011 will be released simultaneously on our site as digital downloads. Their exact content and their prices will be announced in the next few weeks. We intend to keep the prices very reasonable.' So, we might have to pay additionaly for CXL 2011.... or is CXL 2011 only the new version that people that DON'T have the game will be paying for? And those that DO have the game will get it for free? This is still unclear for me - I think I'll send MC a ticket asking about that.

[hmm 17]

Thank goodness I held off on buying the game! I had no intention of playing any city builder game online, it just didnt interest me, and I was very disapointed when I found out that all the mass transit features were reserved for people who subcribe to the PO of the game. I would much rather buy expansion packsand keep them, over leasing them monthly.

[Livin in Sim 83]

Heads up, incoming thread.

--Liv

[John-SJ 13]

That's the title of the email I just received from the CXL Webmaster.

Imagine my surprise!  Well, not that surprised really, it never seemed to me that CXL was doing that well with their PO anyway.  When the revocation of the one and two month offers came along I imagined that MC must be pretty desperate for cash.  Does the revocation of the PO confirm my imagining?  Possibly.

So, buses will be made available to SP mode in March, but then there will be no further updates, meaning no mass transit options, until the release of CXL 2011.  I wonder if it will really be released in 2011?

Will MC get smart and make mass transit a major feature of 2011?

Is MC's quote,

"Although the online game comes to an end the community still lives on and we plan to support it the same way we have always done." 

a good thing, or a bad thing?

[City Planner 121]

They leave off the faq's with this line:

Also, the Bus will be included in the solo game which will be automatically patched on march 8 2010.

So this makes me believe that 2011 will be available on March 8, 2010 but whether it is only a patch to people that subscribed to the game or to anybody that owns CXL, will I guess remain to be seen.

[Livin in Sim 83]

We are go for thread merge in 3...2...1...

[Stef42 0]

Livin in Sim: Nice

I think we all will have to wait for a few weeks until there will be more news?

What I am thinking now: 'Mathew left a few days ago, PO stranded, did Mathew had to clear the field or something...

That would be sad.

[mentarman 14]

Poor MC, they get bashed all along by SP players, now the PO players are sad and upset. And everyone's here to say "I told you so" no matter what it is they said originally.

Personally I don't think going toward an MMO was such a bad idea in itself, I think the problem was doing both SP and PO. They probably should have just done one or the other and gone all out. INstead they went a schizophrenic route and offered most but not all of the game to SP, meaning enough that many didn't think it was worth buying PO but withholding enough to make many of those SP players mad. Meanwhile the PO stuff was a bit interesting and held some promise for the future but wasn't really enough to attract and keep enough players (especially since they had the SP to turn to). Putting everything into the PO and saying "take it or leave it, no SP" would have been better all around I think. Putting it all into SP may end up being almost as good, but at the very least it seems better than dividing attention between SP and PO and never really making anyone happy.

But that's just me, another person Monday morning quarterbacking. What do I know really?

Anyway, I'm a bit sad today for MC that it didn't work out, bit sad that some of the potential of PO is now gone, but hope a renewed focus on SP and just SP can still deliver a great experience. I for one am prepared to pay out the nose for content and expansions as long as they are good quality and really enhance the game.

Maybe they can charge for whatever tool it takes to insert custom content, or charge something small for some piece of programming that will make such custom content usable for each player. I'd be willing to pay, they'd get paid, we'd get custom content, everyone wins.

Maybe some sort of marketplace, maybe they can be the middleman and split proceeds from small per-building (or whatever content) fees with the creator and keep some. I just want them to get their payday so we can get a good game, a game that is supported and improved long-term.

[DazzaDazza 29]

I'm disappointed but not upset. I still have SP. And know hopefully a lot more content and it going to be open slather for mods now I guess

[Livin in Sim 83]

Hello, everyone, and thanks to Gregory for his post.

To the folks at Monte Cristo--I'm sorry that the Planet Offer did not go as well as you had hoped.  I know that you were trying to do what you thought was best and would succeed.  I wish you the best in this new direction.  Please continue your relationship with us, the community, as we welcome it.

To the members--I thank you for posting respectfully in this thread; it's been quite civil.  Some are a bit sad, to those I would say I'm sorry, but please don't lose hope.  To the ones who have new hope, let's do what we can to support Monte Cristo in their endeavors, as I believe they are, after all is said and done, city game enthusiasts, just like us.

Enjoy the game.

--Liv

[samsneed 0]

will we get the mega structure for sp also? kinda hard to keep every one happy without them.

[SimFox 803]

No matter how strongly I've disagreed with PO idea in the first place (partially because I was sure it will turn into a flop) I don't see much reason to rejoice now, apart from being sort "I told you so" stupid thing. In fact I'm worried, more then anything else...

There are couple of reasons for such a reaction.

First of all MC imho had clearly demonstrated couple of rather unpleasant realities.

First one being that they as a company have very vague idea about both the target market true expectations and demands as well as basic economics of the gaming industry.

Second is that it may well be so that in the current situation (cost vs revenues) there is not place for the genre altogether. If you think of this, idea to go with rather clumsy and somewhat absurd idea of PO - only externally biased "expert" could ever seen it as a sure thing, coupled with the flop of SC Societies (as well as the flavor of city building it had chosen) and conspicuous absence of any other city builder only logically points to the conclusion that there is NO money to be made in City builder we know and particularity the one we would like to have. I think I don't need to explain what it means in practical terms (although reading some post I had sometimes to doubt that assumption).

Third, all those people who always somehow sure that everything (and especially "now" ("now" being any arbitrary point in time marked by any event) everything will be great. At this juncture this crowd for some reason believe the gates will open and we get flooded with custom content etc... Of course most of these people have never done anything by them selves, and they not even intent to , they just expect somebody else do ti for them. As such logical thinking isn't their forte. For same reason they don't seem to learn from one mistake, they just keep their wishful thinking. First they were insisting that MC will release public transport for everyone (and current turn of events isn't to justify their statements of months ago), now they believe that MC will release something or fix something (new not what is already out there).

IMHO these expectations are utterly unrealistic. MC is a business ha must generate revenue. And all it's actions are suppose to be targeted at this goal. Doing anything for CXL as it is today will not generate any noticeable cash flow, not anymore. So investing in it would mean just burning money - resource, I'm sure, MC is desperately short of. To be honest I wouldn't be surprise to see, in a couple of month another news, news of MC going bankrupt, or getting new owners (first is far more likely given they track record - flop after flop and todays market). But is it has any hopes of future revenues those will be severely undermined by any custom content that may be released for current version of CXL. It's only hope now is that CXL2011. And even that to happens some new economic model (for real world not for in-game one) has to be devised. And MC ability to do it (just as their ability to make good game) is questionable. But at ANY rate allowing custom content for CXL would be shotting themselves in the foot.

In this light releasing Buses for Solo Play is the one and only PR stunt they can make, and for this they could be applauded, if this would have been don from the pure desire to do good. I, however suspect that would they not do it they could have face possibility of some sort of class action law suite as a perpetrators of a fraud.

So game will be frozen in time with all it's flaws and, luckily buses... Be happy with it, enjoy it as is and don't expect anything more. and in a year or so time decide, again if you want to buy into a new CXL2011. Althougm as i've said i have serious doubt we'll see both new game and MC itself in one year time...

[easypeacy42 0]

I'm glad to see MC coming to reason, finally. Even when it hurts that they probably first had to lose lots of money and time. I think around 80% of the beta tester community can now say "we told you so, MC", indeed ... simply because they did, for months, and no one at MC wanted to listen.

For me this is good news. Because now I again start thinking about buying the game, finally. First, however, MC has to more clearly define what "Cities XL 2011" would be and when it would be.

In addition, it would not hurt to finally improve two major points for Cities XL 2011, which is first of all more lot sizes and second a more dynamic simulation (and not just a repetitive number shifting of residents and jobs). Then, together with improved mass transportation, it would start to become even a great game, sooner or later.

With this news, I'm starting to be a little bit more positive that MC finally starts to work on the great potential of this game. And that they finally start to listen to the community again ...

... hint: MC, maybe look again at the most prominent threads of the former beta forum (if you still have this data ...) ... there you still have what most of the community expects from the game. Go ahead!

[cirugo 1,889]

this is most excellent news!

I can't wait!

[Chiverito 11]

A event like this calls for a special episode of the Cities XL webcast.... hmmmm... I hope MC fixes Mass Transit by 2011 and we might just have a great city builder on our hands. Wonder who won the photo competition?

MC should have a few surprises up their sleeve. This is old news they have been planning this one for a while surely. 3 Months of Planet Offer must of tested the financial stability and of corse nothing went into planet over since early December and the abolishment of the 2 +3 month subscription offer. And I haven't heard that any of there sponsors have pulled out. So I'm sure the next Cities XL will be littered with Avatars wielding Kodak cameras and driving their Mini Coopers and Ford Kuga's to the Novotel only to find that their brand new Alienware PC is gone!!!

Good Luck MC and hope Cities XL 2011 is "Great Sucess"

I also think that all Avatars should be replaced with Companion Cubes!!!

[DazzaDazza 29]

SImfox worte :

No matter how strongly I've disagreed with PO idea in the first place (partially because I was sure it will turn into a flop) I don't see much reason to rejoice now, apart from being sort "I told you so" stupid thing.

yep everyone should yield this advice

[Urbangamer1 0]

I'm sorry for MC that PO didn't work out but I'm very happy myself. Respect to them for trying something new & different but imo city builders were never meant to be mmo(PO wasn't really ever a true mmo anyway) so now they & us can fully concentrate on making this game a good standalone single player city builder as I think the majority of people that have followed this game for years have always wanted.

Now, all content can be focused on single player aspects. There doesn't need to be any worries about some players getting advantages over others due to this not being online anymore.

I honestly believe that this is the best news for this game that has happened in a long time. It will now put an end to all the bitterness that happened initially after the single player part getting no content & the PO getting all of it.

Great news & thankyou MC for finally seeing that city builders are not meant to be played online.

I look forward to this new version of this game which will hopefully be what I've always wanted!!

[Ephemeron 17]

Hmmmm....(Listens to gut)

My gut instinct is that Monte Cristo won't recover from this. They diverted a lot of their resources to the Planet Offer. It actually seemed to be the cornerstone of their sales strategy. The avatar feature is well... redundant now. And people still miss features like terraforming, multiple lot sizes, better farms... to name a few. I don't want to be seen as a bad omen, so I'd like Monte Cristo to prove me wrong.

[KeanoManu 42]

Finally!

This was going to fail anyway, it was so obvious. Everyone except for the MC-guys (who were blinded by the green stuff) could see it long before the game was even released.

Let's hope they can focus on the features that was requested by the community now so maybe the game will be worth buying in a year or so.

Or.. Considering that the words they say are useless and that they always have a habit of breaking promises this may just be a half-way statement towards bankruptcy. They did say in their, now closed, forums that they was putting all the resources the company had into the project.

[Howling 10]

Never bought the game. And once again it's the old lesson: NEVER release an unfinished product. I promised myself not to buy CXL untill MC got it straight - but they never have and probably never will, if you ask me. Just look at their other games, they're always a bit 'undone'. Too bad.

Now where's Will Wright!?

[Aspire 3]

. . . . . . . . . (thinking)

[Jamonbread 222]

Wow MC is so dumb. No kidding there arent enough subscribers at this rate! Look at the price! I'm not paying that! If they had a buissness plan that was half decent and figured out lower price means more people and might mean more money then it might be somewhat of a success. If they didn't shut out the solo mode in the first place I might have bought the game and tried the planet mode. If they had the features they promised I might even pay the existing rate! But for a half empty game of empty promises and sky high monthly rate! All I can say is In your face MC. I hope they learn from their mistakes and get an actual accountant or something...

[Aspire 3]

CXL Bumrushed instead of taking the GTA Path pf letting people wait. They caneled their main website, made changes and addons to the game, and they already knew that us Beta Testers ARGUED that CXL is not quite ready for release,,, many as so, that we produced more than over probably 100,000 tickets, most of them completely automatically answered, not to be read by the testers who sent them, and later could not handle the ammount of load the inccoing users were bringing in to the servers, and also memory leaks, with an extra serving of bugs, trading problems, and more.

[Ndragonawa 37]

Originally posted by: Howling

Now where's Will Wright!?quote>

Yeah..... Where is he and what is he doing during all this?

Anyway, I always liked Solo better than PO: Always someone to trade with, always getting the map you want, the pause button! , etc.

[mightygoose 92]

simfox has nailed it to the wall there.... micromanagement simulatiors for casual gamers... when will they learn, flight simulator is as hard ass as nails to figure out, and you don't see them dumbing down that franchise....

[Urbangamer1 0]

Originally posted by: Ndragonawa

Originally posted by: Howling

Now where's Will Wright!?quote>

Yeah..... Where is he and what is he doing during all this?

Anyway, I always liked Solo better than PO: Always someone to trade with, always getting the map you want, the pause button! , etc.quote>

Will's currently busy with his new company, the stupid fun club. They currently have 3 projects on the go but it's all very hush hush

heres a link to the website if your interested >>>>> http://www.stupidfunclub.com/home.html

(sorry for this being off topic)

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: Ndragonawa

Originally posted by: Howling

Now where's Will Wright!?quote>

Yeah..... Where is he and what is he doing during all this?

quote>

Working on other projects. He is no longer with the Maxis entity of EA, nor has he mentioned anything in regards to SimCity in 5 years now.

Regardless, I do consider this announcement to be a positive. They evidently feel they have enough capital available to push forward with the game, and a subsequent "CXL 2011" release in the future... I, personally, am not concerned with MC failing as a company in that time frame. Dropping the PO may indeed save them money no longer having bandwidth, server and some staffing costs.

MC may now be more open to modding of the game as well. Their concerns regarding modding were mainly based around potential cheating in the PO. And, with busses coming to single player in March, and complete focus on that aspect of the game, I look forward to seeing a revitalized game.

And besides.. living in constant pessimisim is just no fun.

[tbro221 0]

I haven't played the game in months now. Will wait for the buses and see what that's like. This game launch was a failure from the beginning. Alot of issues should have been taken care of in the beta period and weren't, which makes me believe MC was 1.running low on cash and had to get the game out no matter what or 2. simply was not willing to spend the needed capitol to make a great game. Either way I don't see them supporting this game in SP mode for to long.

This is a game like SC4 was in that it will need time to get a followling. It's not like the shotem up games that come out with a bang.

Have fun all.

[Nevets13 27]

Wow, great news.

I know it has been said many times, but the PO just wasn't a good idea. Instead of getting a good (or even great city builder) we got a half-baked online game and half-baked city builder. Maybe now we can move on to a decent city builder.

Now I may actually buy it.