Monte Cristo closing

[Mr. Cortez 11]

What the hell? Anyway, sorry, MC. I hope the employees find other fulfilling jobs.

I loved City Life, it had potential.

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

Was looking forward to the continuation of the game and CXL 2011, but now I know it may be abandoned altogether if the new company doesn't like the concept.

Unless Will Wright surprises us with SC5, or we make our own, us city builders will have to stick with 7-year-old SC4 until Windows 8 or 9 or whatever can't support it anymore.

Just my guess.

[Z77 3]

Originally posted by: gabry85

First of all, it's always sad to see anybody lose their job, no matter what.

My heart goes to those who lost their jobs and I hope they'll find a new one as soon as possible. I'm sure their experience and talents won't be wasted in vain.

Cheers to all the guys over at MC, especially Philippe (I have to say, btw, he's a nice guy; wish we have met under different circumstances) and the others for their children (as written at the bottom of the game's manual), even though they're facing a very difficult moment as well.

---

In hindsight, after the old forum (and beyond) experience, I think Monte Cristo was already facing financial difficulties, with StarPeace first and City Life later. Probably they knew that under standard marketing strategies they couldn't recover from their losses with simple retail sales, hence their gamble and the risks of the Planet Offer with all the silence and ambiguities on the developer's side and the frustation on the community's one.

On the other hand, MC got some investors to "bet" on their ambitious project, which gave them more resources and opportunities to make a more appealing game to sell and allowed them to delay its release (for those who remember, CXL was supposed to be in stores within 2008).

Please note this paragraph above is entirely based on personal speculation, so don't take it too seriously.

Also, bear in mind I'm not attacking nor defending their decisions that brought their studio to this. I wholeheartedly agree this is not the right place.

That said, I believe MC had a lot for the game under their belt. According to Paul Pedriana (Maxis' lead programmer) on this note posted by Tarkus here, it was way too early to make "The New SimCity 5" according to our dreams back at that time (2004), and therefore SCS was only a way for EA to get some quick bucks in the meantime... perhaps, not the way we were expecting it to be, but I'm still optimistic something nice will still come in the following years.

This is, in part, why nobody can yet deliver a full, next-gen, SC4-like city-builder at present, but on the other hand, I strongly believe the current technology can get a little closer to SC5, and CXL did prove this is possible in a way IMHO. All in all, the game is the closest thing to SC5, despite all the tremendous amount of sacrificed features compared to SC4 Vanilla.

Anyway, sorry for my rant. All the best to these guys, they need it.

quote>

My condolences go out to the guys and gals at MC. They definately gave it their all and i hope they all manage to get themselves employed soon.

I do believe that this is not the end for city building games however. As said above and on other posts, Its hard to get a foothold in the market with SC4. The amount of Custom content and the enormous amount of computing power needed are both deterrents for game makers. FPS, MMO, and other games are popular because they are easy to create. In fact, SC4 has more interworkings and undertoned programming than new games such as Call of Duty, Fallout, Etc. because these games use the same programming essentially, just smoothed out and better looking graphics splatted on. It is more feasible to go that route than city builder. Because its essentially a gamble. If you dont make the next SC5 then you fail out. You have to make a game that beats SC4. And thats like saying that you can force everyone in the world to recycle. Not impossible but pretty darn hard to do so.

But again. I hope everyone at MC has a safe memorial day(even if its not in france) and i hope they all get lucky and find jobs soon

[Asgardi 0]

There is one VERY positive thing. CXL was not pirated and MC closed it's doors. Very good for the future of political pirates as an example what happens if you are not popular enough.

[ifurkend 0]

I agree with gabry85 that it's the current hardware (& also game engine) capability that hinders the development of a truly satisfying next-gen Citiy Builder. A money-making monstrosity like WOW doesn't require absolutely hi-end graphic, unfortunately it's the very issue (besides gameplay) that City Builder game has to face. Not only gorgeous artwork, but the capacity to render massive cityscape in real-time. IMO our computer has not not yet been ready for that. But I wholeheartedly believe that the day of genuine next-gen City Builder game will surely come. It's not the end of the world.

Wish all MC staff good luck.

[Xidillon 0]

Just please tell us that EA DIDNT buy it. Just tell us that Gregory, if anything tell us that. Or would it be better? anyway....I still hate to hear that the doors had closed today. New beginnings arent that bad either so good luck.

[Garek Maxwell 1]

Okay, I know a lot of people are afraid of EA buying up the rights and all for it (and it's quite justified!)... But ... Well, I think that if they did, then it could be a sign that they are interested in developing another city builder. (It can also just be them eliminating the competition too, but lets hope for better!) If anyone has the money to really spend time making changes, fixing bugs, and possibly improving the game after spending a lot of money acquiring the license for it, it would be EA. ...whether or not they actually spend money on it is another story as well. Again, let's hope for the best situation for both the former employees and for whoever bought the license.

[pete1061 0]

Originally posted by: Mr. Cortez

What the hell? Anyway, sorry, MC. I hope the employees find other fulfilling jobs.

I loved City Life, it had potential.

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

Was looking forward to the continuation of the game and CXL 2011, but now I know it may be abandoned altogether if the new company doesn't like the concept.

Unless Will Wright surprises us with SC5, or we make our own, us city builders will have to stick with 7-year-old SC4 until Windows 8 or 9 or whatever can't support it anymore.

Just my guess.quote>

Until Windows 8 or 9 can't support SC4?

I have Vista and I can't play SC4 for 30min without a crash to the desktop.

....

As for MC closing up shop...

Thats the game industry for ya. I'm not suprised in the least. It's really no fault of their own, most small developers go out of business. It's a tough industry to make it in. We gamers are a fickle bunch.

I just hope the new owners of CXL release some modding tools.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Widows 7 supports SimCity 4 Deluxe without crashes.

[mr-tom 2]

Slightly off topic, but addresses pete1061's problem.

For operating system problems, worst case, install vmware player - it's free, and you'll be able to create virtual machines of any o/s you want. I have them for xp, 98 etc and have no retro gaming problems (although I'm still working out how to build a dos and windows 3.11 virtual machine... It "translates" your modern hardware into the best that the o/s in question could cope with, so they're pretty slick set ups.

[jeremy12 0]

Originally posted by: mr-tom

Slightly off topic, but addresses pete1061's problem.

For operating system problems, worst case, install vmware player - it's free, and you'll be able to create virtual machines of any o/s you want.quote>

XP Mode.... its from microsoft and free and automatically setup. Where as using VMware you need a XP licence, vista, what ever os you want to run in it you need a licence for it. However if you have windows 7 you get xp mode for free (xp mode = virtual machine xp) oh and xp mode is designed to be easy enough to be installed and setup by a idiot.... VMware is not

[ForceInfinity 0]

Originally posted by: mr-tom

Slightly off topic, but addresses pete1061's problem.

For operating system problems, worst case, install vmware player - it's free, and you'll be able to create virtual machines of any o/s you want. I have them for xp, 98 etc and have no retro gaming problems (although I'm still working out how to build a dos and windows 3.11 virtual machine... It "translates" your modern hardware into the best that the o/s in question could cope with, so they're pretty slick set ups.quote>

If only VMWare would support Windows 98 and Windows 95 in 3d accelerated mode. (which none of the vm software versions do).  It'd make some of my older games like Wizards and Warriors playable

[jeje71 6]

Originally posted by: jeremy12

Originally posted by: mr-tom

Slightly off topic, but addresses pete1061's problem.

For operating system problems, worst case, install vmware player - it's free, and you'll be able to create virtual machines of any o/s you want.quote>

XP Mode.... its from microsoft and free and automatically setup. Where as using VMware you need a XP licence, vista, what ever os you want to run in it you need a licence for it. However if you have windows 7 you get xp mode for free (xp mode = virtual machine xp) oh and xp mode is designed to be easy enough to be installed and setup by a idiot.... VMware is not

quote>

i would like to see virtual pc with no support of any directx run sim city... xp mode is meant for old application, but not old games, and it's mainly a work environnment solution, as advertised by microsoft.

vmware player can seem a bit of overkill just to play a game, but i found it nice to play patrician III on the vm as a mean to mimic a "windowed mode" on a 1080p screen where supported resolutions in the game made it horribly distorted.

[IntoxiNation 0]

I much prefer VirtualBox over VMWare for Windows.

[mr-tom 2]

Yes - good point - you do need to own the o/s licenses, but many of us will (although I'm not sure what to do with my dos 6.22 floppies as I got rid of the drive years ago...)

One good reason to do vmware over xp mode - Tie Fighter never worked on windows xp. And it was awesome.

[mentarman 14]

Hey computer nerds, you're killing the thread.

[mentarman 14]

http://montecristo.talented-people.org/en/?PHPSESSID=2f99eec032d4922b630c56274195cdc8

[LivingInThePast 364]

Originally posted by: mentarman

http://montecristo.talented-people.org/en/?PHPSESSID=2f99eec032d4922b630c56274195cdc8quote>

That's cool. But touting their biggest failure ("the massively online mutli players city builder: Cities XL") as one of the selling points is not a good idea, in my opinion.

[ifurkend 0]

Not all of the employers know, understand or bother with the cause of CXL's failure. It's a complex issue. So listing CXL shouldn't pose a great threat to their employments. It might just make the fans of City Builder Game upset, a bit.

[rvanleeuwen 0]

My Condolences also go out. I really love every game that MC released, mainly the firefighting based ones. So my prayers are with everyone at MC, and know that your work in the computer world will forever be appreciated!

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

I am confused, why do people say this???? You should have just bought the darn game and played single player.........LOL. I might be wrong, or I might be missing something, but from my point of view right now, this comment is like.

Salesman - "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours........Oh, by the way, you can also pay 50 bucks a month for the OPTIONAL GPS feature"

Customer - "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, no optional features, and or transmission"

Again, I apologize if I am missing something.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I agree with rvanleeuwen.

[bourneid 13]

MC did something that very few other developers are doing... trying to expanding the horizons of a game catagory that most in the game community beleive to be dead. They took a huge chance and we should thank them for it. stop being jerks and pissing on the guys and gals that were trying to bring to us a game that many had hoped would have come from Maxis.

Put aside the pay-play stuff and you have a solid city building game... that had many things that we had hoped the next version of SC would have. Remember that Maxis had three previous tries to create the game that ended up being SC4. MC on had one other try.

so before I wear out my welcome on this soupbox I would just like to thank the folks at MC for giving it their best effort and I know that there isnt much that can be said that could make up for the uncertainty of losing your job... other then to say that that you are friend of this community and we hope that whereever you end up in the industry... that you keep in touch.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Originally posted by: bourneid

MC did something that very few other developers are doing... trying to expanding the horizons of a game catagory that most in the game community beleive to be dead. They took a huge chance and we should thank them for it. stop being jerks and pissing on the guys and gals that were trying to bring to us a game that many had hoped would have come from Maxis.

Put aside the pay-play stuff and you have a solid city building game... that had many things that we had hoped the next version of SC would have. Remember that Maxis had three previous tries to create the game that ended up being SC4. MC on had one other try.

so before I wear out my welcome on this soupbox I would just like to thank the folks at MC for giving it their best effort and I know that there isnt much that can be said that could make up for the uncertainty of losing your job... other then to say that that you are friend of this community and we hope that whereever you end up in the industry... that you keep in touch.quote>

But SimCity Classic was a rather solid product and, for 1989, pretty fun to play. It also had a certain degree of realism that Cities XL did not have. Not the graphics, but the fact that it involved enough simple basic components to know how a city "ticks". Before SC, there wasn't any consumer-friendly way to know how cities worked. (edit: added period) 

While it must have been cool to imagine a SimCity 2, I just can't imagine a Cites XL 2. It may have some problems fixed, but will it be the same "plop buildings"? Same cartoonish graphics? Same troll-like people stumbling through the town? 

Furthermore, in the time between SimCity and SimCity 2000, Maxis built a brand: the "Sim" line, a once-proud collection of fun simulations that let you explore the lives of ants, the ecosystem, farms, and even planets. 

Cities XL wasn't a good way to begin a strong brand that builds consumer loyalties. What Monte Cristo needed to do was actually build a creative and original city game: something to dramatically improve what was currently available. But like most of the other companies in the industry, they simply got dollar signs in their eyes and put the foremost task: of building a good game for a trustworthy brand on the backburner for a money-churning MMORPG. The "ignoring the community" cry was just a nasty side-effect of this general attitude. That's the gist.

[DazzaDazza 29]

Originally posted by: rvanleeuwen

My Condolences also go out. I really love every game that MC released, mainly the firefighting based ones. So my prayers are with everyone at MC, and know that your work in the computer world will forever be appreciated!

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

I am confused, why do people say this???? You should have just bought the darn game and played single player.........LOL. I might be wrong, or I might be missing something, but from my point of view right now, this comment is like.

Salesman - "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours........Oh, by the way, you can also pay 50 bucks a month for the OPTIONAL GPS feature"

Customer - "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, no optional features, and or transmission"

Again, I apologize if I am missing something.

quote>

HAHAHAHA yes 100% agree with is statement  but the real funny or sad part about it (witch aver you look at It) is what  LivingInThePast  says is 100% correct MC made to many mistakes at the wrong time. People  even the most staunch MC supporter would be hard pressed to try and defend that all though I did try, and came out looking like a idiot but that’s life I guess           

 

[Eleven11 0]

Originally posted by: rvanleeuwen

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

I am confused, why do people say this???? You should have just bought the darn game and played single player.........LOL. I might be wrong, or I might be missing something, but from my point of view right now, this comment is like.

Salesman - "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours........Oh, by the way, you can also pay 50 bucks a month for the OPTIONAL GPS feature"

Customer - "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, no optional features, and or transmission"

Again, I apologize if I am missing something.

quote>

Ok, but what if without that GPS system the rearviewmirror wouldn't work, the stearingwheel wouldn't turn left and the car wouldn't be able to go faster then 50mph?

In other words, you had to pay for PO not just to play multiplayer but also to get the busses, additional buildings, blueprints etc since they wouldn't work on SP.

So without the GPS system there's not much car left.

I do understand the why's of PO but the lack of Multiplayer options made MC ignore the people that only wanted to SP and left things out to lure them to into buying that GPS system to make everything work.

[Mootilda 76]

Please remember that this is not the place to blame MC:

Originally posted by: Livin in Sim

Before posting, please keep in mind our request earlier in the thread to avoid blame, and statements such as, "I knew it!!", and "I told them this would happen...they're greedy." and "They should have given us what we wanted..." etc.  The company has closed.  Please be mature and respectful.  Comments of this type will be removed.

Thank you.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

Edit:

Please also avoid derogatory comments about other game companies, such as, "EA sucks..." etc.

quote>

[jeje71 6]

Originally posted by: rvanleeuwen

My Condolences also go out. I really love every game that MC released, mainly the firefighting based ones. So my prayers are with everyone at MC, and know that your work in the computer world will forever be appreciated!

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

I am confused, why do people say this???? You should have just bought the darn game and played single player.........LOL. I might be wrong, or I might be missing something, but from my point of view right now, this comment is like.

Salesman - "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours........Oh, by the way, you can also pay 50 bucks a month for the OPTIONAL GPS feature"

Customer - "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, no optional features, and or transmission"

Again, I apologize if I am missing something.

quote>

don't really agree with you, would be more along:

salesman: "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours.....oh by the way, lights, seatbelts, autoradio and gps are optionals, also we don't make electric windows yet even if cars are sold with it for 20 years, but maybe at some point..."

customer: "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, it's not as pretty but at least i can listen to some music and drive at night..."

too much mandatory features were left out of single player game (even for those who had planet offer!!!) to consider the offline experience as viable.

[dabadon5 295]

Cities XL never interested me. SC4,thanks to Simtropolis and similiar sites, had made the game into a something enjoyable.

Players today want a more fullfilling game in which we can decide what our cities look like. some of us dont want the same buildings poping up on every corner.

Anyways good luck to you at Monte Cristo

[mentarman 14]

Originally posted by: jeje71

Originally posted by: rvanleeuwen

My Condolences also go out. I really love every game that MC released, mainly the firefighting based ones. So my prayers are with everyone at MC, and know that your work in the computer world will forever be appreciated!

I never bought CXL because of its planet offer.

I am confused, why do people say this???? You should have just bought the darn game and played single player.........LOL. I might be wrong, or I might be missing something, but from my point of view right now, this comment is like.

Salesman - "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours........Oh, by the way, you can also pay 50 bucks a month for the OPTIONAL GPS feature"

Customer - "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, no optional features, and or transmission"

Again, I apologize if I am missing something.

quote>

don't really agree with you, would be more along:

salesman: "Here is a brand new Mercedes, its yours.....oh by the way, lights, seatbelts, autoradio and gps are optionals, also we don't make electric windows yet even if cars are sold with it for 20 years, but maybe at some point..."

customer: "Oh, in that case ill pass on the car....I like my 1980's Toyota, it's not as pretty but at least i can listen to some music and drive at night..."

too much mandatory features were left out of single player game (even for those who had planet offer!!!) to consider the offline experience as viable.

quote>

You are making a different comparison. Yes, CXL has some faults, some serious ones. Congrats for figuring that out but I hate to tell you you aren't the first one.

But the person didn't say he thought there were faults and thus he stuck with SC4, he said he didn't like it because of the PO. The responder's point is, if you don't like the PO, then don't get the PO. But just because the game has the PO as an option and you don't want that optio ndoesn't mean the whole game sucks. Maybe it does, but judge it on its own merits, not on the fact they offered something you don't want to get.

You are arguing things are missing from the game and hence you'll stick with SC4. That's fine, that's up to each person to decide, but the other person's argument was "they are offering something extra, I don't like it, so screw the whole game, I'm sticking with SC4." Doesn't make near as much sense.

Maybe we just need to drop the car analogies altogether... and this conversation about what went wrong that has been discussed a million times and doesn't really belong here.

[jeje71 6]

Originally posted by: mentarman

You are making a different comparison. Yes, CXL has some faults, some serious ones. Congrats for figuring that out but I hate to tell you you aren't the first one.

But the person didn't say he thought there were faults and thus he stuck with SC4, he said he didn't like it because of the PO. The responder's point is, if you don't like the PO, then don't get the PO. But just because the game has the PO as an option and you don't want that optio ndoesn't mean the whole game sucks. Maybe it does, but judge it on its own merits, not on the fact they offered something you don't want to get.

You are arguing things are missing from the game and hence you'll stick with SC4. That's fine, that's up to each person to decide, but the other person's argument was "they are offering something extra, I don't like it, so screw the whole game, I'm sticking with SC4." Doesn't make near as much sense.

Maybe we just need to drop the car analogies altogether... and this conversation about what went wrong that has been discussed a million times and doesn't really belong here.

quote>

in my book, "they are offering something extra, I don't like it, so screw the whole game, I'm sticking with SC4." is not equal to "I never bought CXL because of its planet offer."

the "of its planet offer " of the second phrase can be replaced by " the single player was stripped of essential elements but not at all related to online content in favor of planet offer exclusivity", hence in my opinion the decision of not buying the game can be motivated due to the planet offer, because the single player experience was emptied because of it.

but your right, this has been discussed at length, i just wanted to point that the planet offer part was more than just a cities xl optional bonus, and was the main element in the cities xl package (as advertised by MC themself i may add) so buying the cities xl package only for solo wouldn't be such a good deal.

the meat of this game was online play, not single.

[jazyje 1]

I think that's one of the  main problems with CXL ---- I own the gamer and have enjoyed it quite a bit,,,,, BUT, after building a few cities, I've noticed they all starting to look almost exactly the same --- buildings get so much repeat it is ridiculous... With endless mods, SC4 doesn't have that problem.... 300-400 buildings in CXL is simply laughable.... My SC4 mod folder holds THOUSANDS of users-created buildings (8GB in size!) ....