Future plan of CITIESXL2011

[paulofranca77 0]

 Well. the game it self has a lot of issues on the mechancis and stuff. and they have a huje lack of options when you are trying to build your city. Talking about crazy ideias for the new game, i had one yesterday while i was playing Spore Galatic Adventures. For you those who don´t know ,the ideia is that basically you can make custom quests and upload them to the web and people can download it and play your custom stuff. Ok so... i had a ideia to incorporate this sord of interaction in to the Cities XL game. First off all, the game would have to have some sord of time counting system, and them a objective system, such as.. lets see, get 1.000.000 Pop within 5 years (in game), and stuff like that, or.. generate 30 Industry tokens for 1 year straight and so on, just like a carrier mode... and as you advance in this "carrier" you unlock stuff, get bonusses and crap like that. well well well, talking about interact with other pleyers, would be nice to make custom quests and chalenge other players to complete it too. so i dont know.. there are SO many options to make this game better, so many ideas...lets see what happens xD

see ya

[mentarman 14]

There are some interesting ideas here of course, and I certainly hope some of them make it into the "new" game, but I'm with those who think this is a bit of a futile exercise. They've gotten all of these suggestions before, they've obviously got limited resources, and I think the expectations vs. reality gap is what did so much damage in the first place.

With the path we took to get here, I think it is a bit foolhardy to take the attitude of "They'll finally be willing/able to do it right, take all our suggestions, and make the perfect game that's exactly what I dreamed of."

I think it's better to not get our hopes up too much. I'm setting my expectations fairly low and hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but prepared to be satisfied with what I've set as the bare minimum.

[MadBrahms 0]

Originally posted by: Chiverito

Customization tool so you can name Transportation networks and districts in your city... MC please don't charge me for every form of mass transit...quote>

I actually think this should be a priority idea, because it makes city journalling more interesting and also adds an extra feeling of personalization to the city. It also strikes me as something that might not be terribly hard to program, as opposed to (say) adding extra mass transit systems, which have a million different dynamics to calibrate.

I'd really like to see more kinds of highway interchanges, especially road/avenue - highway junctions that don't take up so much darn space.

The bottom line for me at this point, though (as I've pointed out in the end of PO thread), is that what I'll be most looking for are fixes to existing bugs / frustrations. These include:

- Memory leaks. Plug them all!

- Trade notifications. Even if the trade is only between one's own cities, simply saying "An offer has been cancelled" is maddeningly unhelpful. Tell us what offer, of how much, and from who! 

- The highway bridge issue, in which bridges can't be built except between intersections (making crossing bodies of water an expensive chore)

- The plaza issue. MC actually deserves partial credit on this one since they patched it so that user-placed plazas have an environmental effect. Unfortunetely, the ones placed by the audo-zone tool do NOT, for some bizarre reason.

- Radii of effect for various city services. Education is particularly well done now, so it could be a model. Healthcare is ridiculously easy; you only need a single hospital for an entire city to be fully satisfied. Police and fire are absolutely maddening; if you place a police headquarters right next to a high crime zone, there is no guarantee it will have any effect whatsoever. Furthermore, there are places where no end of police stations will satisfy, but a multipurpose center will, which is just... odd.

-Persistent map layers. It's quite frustrating to lose sight of whatever metric you're trying to following every time you switch to the build tool.

- Road laying issues with the auto-zone tool. Often times when zoning irregularly shaped areas, plots will pop up in the middle without any road connection (but with the room necessary for that conneciton, weird!). There's also an issue in which roads sometimes get laid on top of one another and don't actually intersect, and it's often hard to notice, though this is less of a big deal.

- The price of highway connections. This isn't really a "bug" but I'm including here anyway because it seems so inoordinately high, especially in comparison to ports / airports and given the proportional effect of highways. In a single-player only model where profit from goods is necessarily limited this may become a much bigger issue.

- Bus lines: allow us to edit them! Nothing says frustration like a "broken bus line" message that leaves no alternative but deletion, and these messages often appear with little obvious reason behind them.

There's probably many more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[Andre090904 0]

Most of your concerns are modifiable...so with the end of PO we will have less restrictions to modify the game. As a consequence there will be more modders...including more mods.

"Wait & See". 

[cheuk18me94 0]

No just modding, and also more custom content like buildings.

Modding is not including making custom map and cusom content.

[DJ1 0]

Originally posted by: mentarman

There are some interesting ideas here of course, and I certainly hope some of them make it into the "new" game, but I'm with those who think this is a bit of a futile exercise. They've gotten all of these suggestions before, they've obviously got limited resources, and I think the expectations vs. reality gap is what did so much damage in the first place.quote>

I disagree. I would say the main problem is that MC believe that they could force the citybuildergamers into a MMO instead of listening to what the cosumers wanted. You dont get rich if you make a game that nobody wants. The CEO of MC had read to many articles about MMO being the future. Just imagine Cities XL if MC wouldnt have spent any time on planet offer and all around that and instead focused on developing a great citybuilder after what their costumers want. The planet offer turned out to be useless and they are dropping it. I simply cant understand how so big companies can make such hugh misstakes.

[Ephemeron 17]

Has anyone from Monte Cristo posted on here explicitly asking for ideas? Has Monte Cristo reopened their own forum? I'm asking because I don't know, but I expect the answer is no.

[sthudig 0]

Originally posted by: Garek Maxwell

I just want the following:

1. Cities Unlimited

Bring back the image and focused simplicity this game had before things changed and darkness swept over the forums and community.quote>

Bingo!

[sthudig 0]

MC already has our wishlist.... the now defunct Cities Unlimited forums.

No one could ask for any more than what was written in there! And I am happy they are being posted here.

I agree with the mods...wishlist threads are really not necessary.

[Baracus250 0]

I found an interesting article recently about piracy on PC games (as compared to other platforms) which I'm now thinking is the key factor that forced MC's hand to head down the MMO road.

In essence, piracy is so high on PC that the only way developers can find around it is to have a subscription model and on-line only content (for which of course only registered legal users can access)... so maybe they were just trying this approach and I gues you can't blame them for that.

It's a bit of an epic read but if you're interested: www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

(jump to page 7 if you can't be bothered to read all of it! It's a good read though)

What do you think?

EDIT: To mods - sorry, I just realised this probably isn't in the right thread Feel free to move it...

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Good article; While I think the piracy issue gets blown out of proportion somewhat by game companies, it does present a real economic problem that's only going to get worse, and could eventually undermine gaming for the PC.  Online subscription might be a good way to defuse the problem, but I only think that works if the online element adds something of value; it will be a long time before gamers accept the idea of "renting" their single-player games.

But even if the traditional way of making games becomes unprofitable, there are alternatives; For Metropolis we are using an assurance contract model, which solves the free rider problem nicely. (Players decide what they're willing to pay  in advance, but the game isn't made if there's not enough support.)  I think in the future we'll see an end to traditional box sales and a combination of MMOs and open source titles dominating the PC market.

It will be interesting to see if MC can turn the game around on an expansion-pack basis (which is where they seem to be heading with CXL2011);  If they go the extra mile to increase their transparency with the community they might be able to do it.

[Struckar 5]

As already said: If they turn back to the community and respect it, they will get more profit. The MMO thing was stupid. It worked badly and was as uninteresting as most of the games made today. The problem we're all facing (the game developers and players) is not piracy, but is the low quality of the games. Why is SC4 still alive? It's not a very exciting game is it? But you can play it every day and you're able to make something new every day. You have vast systems that you control and build and you actually upgrade things in your city. Shooting people every day in the same ''room''/enviroment or racing same cars on the same roads, gets on your/my nerves after 2-3 days. No problem with MMO's I'd be willing to pay for MC's subscription, but not for an expansion pack with 5 buildings a new road texture and a few busses. I'd pay it if it were somewhere on the scale of SC4 today. Where you are able to create and design allmost anything. I'm sick and tired of hearing if you want to play it you'll pay it. It's up to us the players, to let them know, that it's time to make it good if they want to sell it. It time for them to lower the profits in order to have a longer and more secure sale of the game. If EA or Maxis was smart, they could be selling the licenses of SC4 to modders so they could make new mods for them, so they would have less effort and costs and a better game, and make a new SC5 together, but instead they've changed tactics and started to sell SC for brainless people. And MC are close to getting there to. The only thing saving them is that the game has just been released. And they still have time to make worthy of what they call it. The new generation of city builder games.

[cheuk18me94 0]

For public transport, I think we also need BRT(Bus Rapid Transit in cities XL2011 too.

[City Planner 121]

Originally posted by: N106

Let me explain to everyone what CXL 2011 really is:

Monte Cristo is trying to cut their losses. They realize that their game has failed, and are going to try to get out of it with as little of a financial loss as possible. They went wrong when they started ignoring the community.

Even worse, I get the feeling all other gaming companies are probably seeing the futility in trying to make a city-builder game.

The second Monte Cristo stopped listening to the community is the moment when it became obvious that there will be no successor to SC4.quote>

If Cities 2011 is really MC just trying to cut their losses, then I guess we should expect it out sooner rather than later since they wouldn't be putting in the extra man hours and money to minimize their financial losses.

If it takes them really into 2011 to produce Cities 2011, then I would expect some substantial improvements in the game in some way, and thus some more serious money spent on it.

[bluespottedhorse 49]

It's a complete waste of time and energy to complain about a game that is not out yet. Let's all hope we will never have to have a thread about the shortcomings of 2011.

On a positive note, changing the name to 2011 is indeed smart and provides a way for MC to distance itself from the failed 2010 moniker and start with a clean slate. I can't wait to see the finished product.

[Ephemeron 17]

Hmm, I know I shouldn't be having these thoughts but...

Monte Cristo said they were putting all their resources into this game. So if it fails they'll go bankrupt. Bad news? But if they do go bankrupt then we (Simtropolis, the modding community) may be able to acess the source code!

That means we could do all the ground-breaking, game-changing mods that weren't even possible in SC4. I'm thinking massive changes to gameplay mechanics for a start. New transit networks would come eventually - trains, subways, monorails (In SC4 the networks are hardwired into the game code, which has always been a problem for the NAM team). It might even be possible to expand the 10x10 map, once computing speeds catch up.

[cheuk18me94 0]

I suddenly think about merging MC and Maxis.....

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Originally posted by: Ephemeron

Hmm, I know I shouldn't be having these thoughts but...

Monte Cristo said they were putting all their resources into this game. So if it fails they'll go bankrupt. Bad news? But if they do go bankrupt then we (Simtropolis, the modding community) may be able to acess the source code!

That means we could do all the ground-breaking, game-changing mods that weren't even possible in SC4. I'm thinking massive changes to gameplay mechanics for a start. New transit networks would come eventually - trains, subways, monorails (In SC4 the networks are hardwired into the game code, which has always been a problem for the NAM team). It might even be possible to expand the 10x10 map, once computing speeds catch up.

quote>

Interesting thought... there's certainly precedent for that sort of thing, it's exactly what happened with StarPeace (although that didn't turn out so well) and Blender (which *has* been quite successful since then).  It would certainly be a shorter path to an open source city builder.

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: ScaryMonkey

Interesting thought... there's certainly precedent for that sort of thing, it's exactly what happened with StarPeace (although that didn't turn out so well) and Blender (which *has* been quite successful since then).  It would certainly be a shorter path to an open source city builder.

quote>

Blender's source code wasn't just "released". There was an active fundraising campaign that ended up raising around $100,000 to get the code released. It would be interesting to see if that kind of energy could be stirred up in the city building world.

Funny though with StarPeace. That was actually published by MC.

[Livin in Sim 83]

Heads up, incoming thread.

[cheuk18me94 0]

After today, PO will be ended. I would like to know what will CXL become.  I hope it will be a new stage for CXL, and even for simcity series.

[gianthaiku 5]

YAYZ! i never really liked planet offer.

i guess this is the end of an era for CXL...

:=) yet it's also the beginning of a new one.

[slickster79 0]

Yeah, unfortunately I think we have a little wait ahead of us until Cities XL 2011 thought. As far as I can tell nothing is going to change from tomorrow apart from those who haven't already installed the solo bus patch will get it automatically.

Hopefully MC will suprise us with a date soon.

[gianthaiku 5]

well you have to wait for progress

[Livin in Sim 83]

Stand by for thread merge in 3...2...1

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Originally posted by: IntoxiNation

Originally posted by: ScaryMonkey

Interesting thought... there's certainly precedent for that sort of thing, it's exactly what happened with StarPeace (although that didn't turn out so well) and Blender (which *has* been quite successful since then).  It would certainly be a shorter path to an open source city builder.

quote>

Blender's source code wasn't just "released". There was an active fundraising campaign that ended up raising around $100,000 to get the code released. It would be interesting to see if that kind of energy could be stirred up in the city building world.

Funny though with StarPeace. That was actually published by MC.

quote>

Yes, should have been clearer on that point... when Ephemeron said the community might "get access to" the source code I was assuming he meant we would have to raise money to do it, like they did with Blender and Starpeace (although as I recall Starpeace might have been bought by several fans as an investment, rather than by the community at large.)

I guess my question is, from a technical standpoint, if we had the Cities XL code in hand, how much could be done with it?  Would it be possible to graft a deeper simulation onto the graphics engine?  Or would it need so much reworking as to not be worth it?  I suppose there's no way to know without actually seeing the code... although the lack of multicore support makes me wonder.

[danholo 12]

Originally posted by: City PlannerI don't think that anybody really thinks that ^^ (MC wants their ideas), it's just seems to be part of the Internet Psychy (sp?) that people love to post wish lists about what they would like to see in a gamequote>

So I wonder who their target audience is if they won't listen to the only customer fan base which is, well, us. I love Sim City 4, but not because it's "Sim City" but it's an excellent game which has stood the test of time. I wouldn't even be surprised if I'd be playing this 5 years from now (who knows but it's already been 7(!!!) years since this game is out; That's quite the feat) and it will look even more awesome with better hardware. CitiesXL got me a bit interested that "wow", finally a 3D game, but not surprisingly a superficial shell of polygons couldn't supersede a "2D" game. It hasn't even dawned upon me to try CitiesXL, mainly because of the complaints on this board, who would love to see at least the basic features of a city builder which even Sim City 2000 had, like transportation. I personally love fiddling with the stuff; It boggles the mind how

I can contend the fact that a true city builder with today's hardware is practically impossible. To be able to build a fully dynamic living city might be a little too much. Think about a city with millions with diverse forms of families all with different incomes, maybe ally ways with rats, homeless people on the streets. There are of course too many details. Then the UDI system could be made into a Gran Turismo type thing. This would practically be more then a city simulator. Sim Life. (Don't they have that...?) Wasn't this the reason Sim City 5 won't be made in the near future... if ever?

As the opposite to Chiverito, I'm not opposed to paying a small fee for each form of extra mass transit that MC adds into the game. quote>

They took it from the game and are playing on our base desires to milk a few more bucks for their programming? Dude, no. This ploy of downloadable content is not a viable change in marketing, especially when in question are basic game play features. It's like they took out the base necessities. What kind of logic does that follow? I mean, there isn't much competition, but I'd probably even pay the same amount of money for SC4 then CXL even if it isn't new. Metaphorically I could compare this situation where somebody establishes a hotel, but "you'll have to pay extra to use the bathroom". Ok, the comparison might be a bit extreme but come on, this is not Pay Per View porn we are talking about, or the mini-bar. Of course, some will pay (I payed for Mega Man 9 DLC, but it wasn't necessary for the core game), but it won't appeal to the majority of potential customers. Just because downloadable content can be done with today's technology doesn't mean it's cool or a good way to get income. This is actually one of the main reasons I don't care to get this game. Let us see what the future holds.

Being biased? I didn't even try the game, not that I think it would work on this machine. SC4 is crashing on me constantly. I honestly wish MC will "up the ante" with next installments, but the key will be to listen to the customers. In this world top-down marketing just doesn't work. There are too many variables in play and the customers have a much larger base of ideas to incorporate, and they are the one's who will be paying for MC's bills after all...

[Moory 7]

I'd like to give Monte Cristo some credit for their work on CXL. I have zero experience playing the game as I have stuck with SC4 since release, but I believe Monte Cristo is following the right path.  I believe they are moving towards the "next-gen" type of Sim City game which some people don't want, but in reality, it's what every game company is doing.

I have viewed plenty of videos/screenshots/CJ's of CXL and I am sort of interested in their direction with the game. The game has that "real-life" feeling to it, and gives you the ability to view your city from different angles that SC4 does not offer. Some of the screenshots out there looks comparable as if you were viewing a city on Google Earth. I like that feature, imo.

Obviously I am missing the inner mechanic problems CXL may contain that drives some people away from the game and I totally understand that. But you have to realize that bugs are in all new type of games and I hope you at least give Monte Cristo a break from that aspect of the game. That's why if this game sustains a success, CXL 2011 will be even greater than the first. Then CXL 2012 or whatever they call it will be even better. You get the idea.

Maybe Monte Cristo is listening to people here on Simtropolis and are throwing your ideas onto the drawing board for the next CXL installment. EA isn't taking advantage of extending the Sim City series any time soon, so Monte Cristo has a HUGE opportunity of taking lead in the city building game. I honestly can't see us never seeing another Sim City type game. There has always been racing/shooter/sports/war/etc games for as long as I can remember, and I can't see some type of city building game phasing out forever to be seen.

One day we will see the next "real" Sim City release, just gotta be patient with it.

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: ScaryMonkey

I guess my question is, from a technical standpoint, if we had the Cities XL code in hand, how much could be done with it?  Would it be possible to graft a deeper simulation onto the graphics engine?  Or would it need so much reworking as to not be worth it?  I suppose there's no way to know without actually seeing the code... although the lack of multicore support makes me wonder.

quote>

It's really hard to say, but one thing to keep in mind is that you wouldn't want to aileniate people with older hardware. CXL is built on DirectX 9. You would gain a lot by moving to 10 or 11, but then you would loose people getting into the game because their gfx cards only support DX9. Of course with the smaller niche that is into city builders, it might not be that bad to say "screw the DX9 people - let them upgrade".

I do believe if the code was ever released you would see a bigger focus on modifying the game play, making it mimic more of a SC4 type experience. A lot of that stuff can be done without touching the gfx engine.

[pete1061 0]

Really, all I'm really hoping for in CXL2011 is for them to fix the memory leak/performance issues with the game.

and maybe get the rail features (subway/light rail/ freight rail).

Anything else is just wishful thinking. Technical issues are number one. It gets really bothersome to have the game slow to a crawl after playing for any reasonable amount of time. It takes at least 30 seconds to a minute to do a simple action like start a new trade contract with Omnicorp. But I'm sure it's not a simple fix, if it was I think they would have fixed the game by now.

PS: As far as a next "real" Sim City release... I'd only want it if Will Wright somehow gets the copyright back from EA and makes it on his own. EA destroyed Maxis.